The Cinema Belgica Database

Cinema Belgica (CB) is an online platform that integrates fourteen existing datasets covering Belgian film production, distribution, exhibition, censorship and reception. In order to facilitate (inter)national data exchange and comparative research into cinema history, the platform (a) integrates key datasets related to Belgian cinema history, (b) makes them accessible according to FAIR principles (Wilkinson et al., 2016), and (c) enriches them with heritage collections. CB is Belgium’s contribution to the growing network of historical cinema databases, such as Cinema Context and The German Early Cinema Database (Dibbets, 2010; Garncarz, 2014). CB's data model is a modified version of the Cinema Context data model (van Oort & Noordegraaf, 2020). It is built around eight main conceptual entities: programme, film, censorship, venue, person, company, archive and publication (cfr. tree view). We refer to our accompanying research paper for more information regarding the logical organisation of the CSV files. The data deposited here can also be accesses via the public website of Cinema Belgica.