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Countless films have not been preserved in cinematheques and film museums, but in small archives of local authorities, associations and companies as well as in private collections. In our ongoing series Collect Films! we invite collectors to the Zeughauskino to give us an insight into their collections and talk about their passion.

In February, our guest is the musician Tobias Rank from Leipzig, who has been touring the country for 25 years with his mobile cinema - a converted fire engine - performing silent films in the open air and accompanying them as a soloist on the piano or in an ensemble. Films from his large 16mm collection will be shown, which also includes classics of European cinema, but whose main focus lies in American slapstick comedy. Wonderful comedians who are forgotten today, such as Harry Langdon, Lupino Lane and Larry Semon, are just as much at home in this collection as Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy. They all come to life again in the traveling cinema of Tobias Rank, who was awarded the German Silent Film Prize for his work in 2023. (Philipp Stiasny)