Today, we use powerful beamers to project images and films onto the wall, but in the past, it was the magic lantern and later, until well into the 1990s, slide projectors that we used to relive our holiday memories or family events in convivial gatherings. With a projector from the German Democratic Republic (GDR), it was even possible to play roll films. There were film series on all kinds of topics, fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, Wilhelm Hauff, or from One Thousand and One Nights. The roll film worked as the name suggests: you put it in the projector, turned it over two spools, turned on the light – and the show could start. If not already inserted into the images the text was enclosed as a slip of paper or even available on vinyl record. Production of the projector was short time discontinued after the reunification of the two German states in 1989. It was now the time of video recorders. Today, they are coveted collector’s items, along with the films. Read more about this in the article by Dr. Ron Schlesinger.
Here you can read it in German
(c) Illustration Laterna Magica Filmstreifen, Märchen (1950 – 1970) Museum Europäischer Kulturen / Berlin Germany