 | |
| Company type | Public |
|---|---|
| Industry | Imaging |
| Founded | 1909 (Wolfen plant), 1964 (ORWO) |
| Headquarters | , |
| Products | Photography film, motion picture film, archiving film |
ORWO (for ORiginal WOlfen) is a registered trademark of the company ORWO Net GmbH, based in Wolfen and is also traditionally known for black-and-white film products, made in Germany and sold under the ORWO brand.
ORWO was established in East Germany in 1964 as a brand for photographic film and magnetic tape, mainly produced at the former ORWO Filmfabrik Wolfen (now Chemical Park Bitterfeld-Wolfen). The Wolfen factory was founded by AGFA (Aktien-Gesellschaft für Anilin-Fabrikation) in 1910 and developed the first modern colour film, which incorporated colour couplers, Agfacolor Neu, in 1936.
The partition of Germany after the Second World War saw AGFA divided, into Agfa AG, Leverkusen in West Germany, and VEB Film und Chemiefaserwerk Agfa Wolfen in East Germany, which later adopted the brand ORWO. The company was privatised in 1990 as ORWO AG, but film production ceased at Wolfen in 1994 following the liquidation of the company, with its constituent parts closed or sold off. The Industry and Film museum Wolfen now occupies part of the original factory.[1]
One of the successor companies, FilmoTec GmbH was founded in 1998 to produce high quality black and white cinema and technical films, based in Wolfen under the ORWO brand (license rights are held by the ORWO Net GmbH). Currently, the ORWOFilm range incorporates negative film for motion picture production (UN54 and N75), duplicating film, print film, sound recording film, and film leaders for the processing and distribution business.
In 2020 FilmoTec was brought under common ownership under Seal 1818 GmbH with film coating company InovisCoat GmbH, also based in Germany and with shared Agfa heritage to offer films for the film industry under the traditional brand “ORWO”.[2]
- ^ "Industrie und filme museum Wolfen". www.ifm-wolfen.de. Retrieved 2021-10-24.
- ^ "North Channel Bank Provides Financing for Acquisition of Film Material Producers InovisCoat and FilmoTec". www.northchannelbank.de. 2020-08-25. Retrieved 2021-10-24.