Imagen Preserves East Germany’s Film Heritage With PROGRESS

Imagen has been selected by PROGRESS, one of the oldest and largest film distributors in Germany, to manage and distribute its vast content library of over 17,000 films to global media companies.

imagenWith 12,000 hours of footage in its archive, PROGRESS engaged Imagen in order to make all licensed content easily available on a single platform for its customers – media companies that require licenses to buy 20th-century films. As PROGRESS’ back catalog also includes the complete film heritage of East-Germany and is the only collection in the world where the entire film production of one country is held exclusively by one organization, it was vital to ensure the longevity and security of this valuable content.

As part of a three-month pilot scheme, PROGRESS has currently uploaded 1,600 films from its archive to the Imagen platform as it works to streamline the process of customers acquiring footage.

The initial project was turned around quickly with all of the metadata for PROGRESS’ 17,000 films created within four weeks. Within the next eight weeks, the focus will be on uploading the most important 3,000 films, with the larger aim of having 50-60% of the catalog uploaded to platform in the next three months.

“Prior to using Imagen, our customers were required to speak to an archivist who would then find the footage they needed, create a file and send it to the customer, which would take up to three days and proved to be a major hurdle for our clients,” said Gunnar Dedio, Managing Director, PROGRESS. “Thanks to Imagen, we will soon have an up-to-date video library available online and through which customers can easily find and buy the content they need, and we expect to see substantial increases in revenue as a result of this.”

The use of AI within the Imagen platform has also been a key benefit for PROGRESS, enabling its clients to easily search for and find the content they require on the progress.film website since its implementation.

“With a back catalog of this volume, it’s vital that PROGRESS is able to easily manage, store and share its content with customers and within the organization,” said David Parker, CRO, EMEA & APAC, Imagen. “We are pleased to have been able to help PROGRESS achieve this and look forward to continuing our working together, ensuring its remaining 15,000 films are uploaded to the platform in the coming months.”

The Imagen platform is also being used internally in order to develop consistent workflows across the business and to enable employees access to video for rough cuts and internal communications. Its use across the entire organization will enable employees to follow defined processes and ensure everyone is using a single solution for all their video storage and sharing needs.