ORWO 100 Years

Celebrating more than 100 years
A rich and varied history

ORWO was originally founded in Wolfen, Germany; as an off-shoot of the AGFA film company.
In 1909 the Filmfabrik Wolfen was founded as part of the Aktien-Gesellschaftfür Anilin-Fabrikation (Agfa) and belonged to I.G. Farben from 1925. The Agfa Wolfen plant developed one of the first modern colour films, with incorporated color couplers, Agfacolor, in 1936, one year after Kodachrome (which was a color reversal stock).

During the last decade ORWO has become renown for its cutting-edge range of black and white film products which incorporates negative film for motion picture production, duplicating film, print film, sound recording film, and film leaders for the processing and distribution business.

ORWO continues to produce a wide range of film products on the site where motion picture film manufacture has been a tradition since 1910, and where continuing innovative development in film technology has been a feature of the ORWO brand since 1964 (when the ORWO trademark was established, patterned after ORiginal WOlfen).
The ORWO timeline

1
1909
The Filmfabrik Wolfen was founded as part of the Aktien-Gesellschaft für Anilin-Fabrikation (Agfa).
2
1936
The Agfa Wolfen plant developed one of the first modern colour films, with incorporated colour couplers, Agfacolor, one year after Kodachrome.
3
1945
After WW2, the plant was taken over by US forces and important patents and documents regarding the Agfacolor process were confiscated and handed over to Western competitors.
4
1953
The plant became the property of East Germany and VEB Film- und Chemiefaserwerk Agfa Wolfen was given the right to sell its products under the Agfa brand in Eastern Europe.
5
1964
The ORWO trademark (patterned after ORiginal WOlfen) was introduced.
6
1990
Following the merger of East and West Germany, the company was privatized in 1990. After several bankruptcies, a number of companies continue the tradition of ORWO.
7
1998
The ORWO FilmoTec GmbH was formed.
8
2020
The company was proud to announce the reunification of the IP, recipes, brand, R&D and production; for the first time in 50 years. For the first time this century, the IP and know how of Agfa Motion Pictures, and its spin off ORWO was united under one common shareholder. This brought together IC Investments, InovisCoat, FilmoTec and a range of other companies, underneath one banner.
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Celebrating more than 100 years

A rich and varied history

ORWO was originally founded in Wolfen, Germany; as an off-shoot of the AGFA film company.

During the last decade ORWO has become renown for its cutting-edge range of black and white film products which incorporates negative film for motion picture production, duplicating film, print film, sound recording film, and film leaders for the processing and distribution business.

The ORWO timeline

1909

1936

1945

1953

1964

1990

1998

2020

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Check out my latest updates!