Cinema Context and the genes of film history

Cinema Context (www.cinemacontext.nl) is a website and tool for researching the history of film culture in the Netherlands. It provides basic information about the Who, What, Where and When of film exhibition and distribution, from its origins to the present. At the same time the site allows researchers to analyse the available data and to study patterns and networks, the DNA of film culture. This paper reports on the purpose and structure of this instrument, and demonstrates its analytical powers with a few examples. It will comment on the impact of digitization on film history and how this can contribute to the sharing of knowledge.