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Colour Film Processes: AGFA & ORWO

by Jürgen Kellermann, Adelaide Email: juergen.kellermann @ adelaide.edu.au

In the last issue of Reel Deals, Mike Trickett presented an overview of mainly
American and British colour processes. Other colour film stocks that collectors often
come across are Agfa and Orwo.
The German Agfa company has a long history in photographic products. It initially
produced photo-graphic papers, and from 1903 on it started to produce cinematographic
b/w film stock. From the early 1930s, Agfa did research into colour films. In 1936, it
introduced Agfacolor Neu reversal film, a year after Kodachrome, but the Agfa product
could be processed in a single colour developer. This reversal film was available as 8mm
and 16mm for home use, and as 35mm (slide) film. — My article only gives an over-view
of Agfa colour films; for details of the process and the films made with Agfa, see
references below.
Agfacolor motion picture film was released by the Agfa company in 1939. It was
the first negative-positive process using just one strip of multilayer photographic film.
In the following years this German colour film stock became a prestige project of the
Nazi regime, who wanted to rival the American Technicolor process. Several short films
and advertisements were shot in Agfacolor, and 13 full-length feature films were
completed by 1945. The most well-known are the Ufa productions Münchhausen (1943),
Große Freiheit no. 7 (1944; Great freedom no. 7), both with Hans Albers, and the
infamous Kolberg (1945). Typical for Agfacolor films were the wide range of natural
colours and the pastel tones with subdued reds. This is in contrast to the bright colours
of Technicolor.
After the war, the Agfa factory in Wolfen, was in Soviet occupied East Germany
(later GDR). This enabled the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries to soon
produce colour films using Agfacolor film stock, often credited as Sovcolor or Polcolor
(in Poland). Because the Allies declared all German patents open and free-to-use,
companies like Gevaert in Belgium and Ferrania in Italy adopted the Agfacolor system
(Gevacolor & Ferraniacolor). In Japan, Fuji and Konishiroku (now Konica) also
produced colour films based on the Agfa patents (Fujicolor & Sakuracolor). Another
derivative of Agfacolor was Fotoncolor in Poland.
In the United States, Ansco also manufactured colour film based on Agfacolor during
the war and afterwards under its own name (Ascocolor & Anscochrome). As an
American subsidiary of Agfa, this company had knowledge of the Agfacolor process
and its patents. In West Germany, a new Agfa factory was built in Leverkusen, which
opened in 1951.
In 1964, after license negotiations, the East German Agfa factory agreed to change
its name to Orwo (“Original Wolfen”), whilst the West German company retained the
name Agfa. From then on, Orwocolor was produced in East Germany. Also in 1964, the
West German Agfa merged with the Belgian Gevaert company. This all happened during

Reel Deals - 12 - March 2014