Content

This seventh edition of the Importing Asta Nielsen Database includes some 16,000 sets of data on the distribution and exhibition of the 27 long feature films starring Asta Nielsen released before the First World War. This content provides various options to access information from trade papers and local papers, on both national and local levels. Advertisements and articles have been collected from journals and newspapers based on paper print originals, on microfilmed versions or on digitized versions. Most helpful have been the websites Austrian Newspapers Online (Austria-Hungary), The British Newspapers Archive (Great Britain), Trove (Australia) and Papers Past (New Zealand).

The database covers all 27 Asta Nielsen films released before the First World War, and also Asta Nielsen’s live performances in pantomimes. The database allows research on the exhibition of Asta Nielsen films in a given city or town, during a certain period of time, and includes rich information on national distribution and local exhibition practices. Hence, the database opens various perspectives for comparative analysis.

Persons (e.g. actors, directors, lecturers, bandleaders, vaudeville artists or cinema managers) who are named in advertisements for Asta Nielsen films provide context information on local performances and programming practices. Film reviews and articles on Asta Nielsen and on her acting style (see Bibliography) offer abundant material to study public discourses on the star and her films.

The progressing digitization of local newspapers (as in Australia and New Zealand) opens promising perspectives for mapping the distribution of films and the circulation of film prints.

Some information about search fields:

FILM

Listed are the distribution titles of the 27 long feature films starring Asta Nielsen and released before the First World War, followed by the original titles (in brackets). In addition, also the various titles of the three Asta Nielsen star series are listed as far as they appear in the promotion of films. The FILMOGRAPHY section provides an overview of all original and distribution titles of the 27 long feature films starring Asta Nielsen before the First World War.

PERSON

All persons (dead or alive) named in articles and advertisements on Asta Nielsen and those 27 films are listed with indication of their profession (e.g. cinema manager) or position (e.g. Emperor of Germany). Due to the variety of professions it is not possible to search professions as for instance “List all French actresses” or “List all ventriloquists”. As Asta Nielsen is nearly always named, her name is only listed in case information is given that reaches beyond general mentions like “the famous”, “the well-known” Asta Nielsen.

PUBLISHER

Publishers are usually journals or newspapers, divided into the text sorts trade press, local press, fan magazine, non-film journal.

COUNTRY

Due to two world wars and the Balkan wars of the 1990s, today's political map, especially in Europe, differs from the political map of the years 1910 to 1914. This applies for the territories of the dissolved Empires of Austria-Hungary and Russia, the dissolved Ottoman Empire and to Czechia, Croatia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Ukranie.

TOWN

Cities and towns are listed with their names used in today's English. Their country data refer to the political map of the years 1910 to 1914: e.g. the entry “Wrocław, Germany”, refers to Breslau, Germany, today's Wrocław in Poland.

Acknowledgements:

Creating the Importing Asta Nielsen Database was only possible thanks to the assistance of many helping hands: A special thanks goes to Victor Chavez. Of the many scholars who shared their research data, we are especially grateful to Łukasz Biskupski, Andrzej Dębski, Andrea Haller, Oya Kasap Ortaklan, Julio Montero, Sawako Ogawa, María Antonia Paz, Agnes Schindler, and Pierre Stotzky. Students and student assistants from Philipps University Marburg and the University of Trier collected and formatted most of the data sets. We are especially grateful to Caroline Braun, Eva Fazekas, Cedric Fritsch, Tatiana Kichkina, Matthias Köberlein, Ina Lemm, Carina Lennartz, Maximilian Ossweiler, Susanne Schöla (University of Trier) and Marcello Cruppo, Kaya Mogge, Maike Plutz, Jan Rahrbach, Maike Rößler (Philipps University Marburg).