SVEMA Film, Tasma Film, ORWO Film

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Created on Thursday, 22 May 2008 08:16

Last Updated on Friday, 14 December 2012 20:15

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SPA SVEMA (Shostka Light-sensitive Materials) is located in the Ukraine. Apparently, the SVEMA plant is currently operating under bankruptcy. There are many different rumors, but the last films that Svema produced expired in the year 2000. They are supposedly repackaging other films (Forte for example - but in 2007, Forte also closed their doors) and labelling them as Svema products, but this has yet to be proven. It is possible that they are operating as a suplier of other films in the Ukraine, but again, this is pure conjecture and currently there is absolutely no confirmation as such.

In days past, Svema produced Black and White film, as well as color. But, under the Soviet system, there was not much of a need to improve the film emulsions to compete with Western standards, and after the fall of the Soviet Union, Svema took a large hit as their product was inferior to other films around the globe, including Kodak, AGFA, Ilford, and FujiFilm.

Tasma, also often called Tacma (due to the confusion in translating the Russian cyrillic letter c to s), was a Soviet film manufacturer in Kazan created in 1933.

At the beginning of WWII, they made products for the film industry defense plan. After the fall of the Soviet Union, they became the JSC - Holding Company - Tasma (or in Russian: ОАО - Холдинговая компания - Тасма). The site is in Russian, so you made need the help of a translator to read it. They still produce and manufacture Motion Picture film for sale to the industry.

ORWO, another one of the Soviet film manufacturers was located in Wolfen, East-Germany and founded in 1910 (as a pre-Soviet company).

Originally an AGFA factory the Soviets occupied it after WWII and renamed it VEB Filmfabrik AGFA Wolfen. In 1964, the name was changed to ORWO, which stood for Original Wolfen. The ORWO factory became the second largest in the World, at one point employing over 15,000 people.

In 1996 ORWO was liquidated (mostly due to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the reunification of Germany), but in 1998 FilmoTec GmbH was founded as the successor to ORWO. FilmoTec GmbH now produces a wide range of high quality photographic motion picture film film at its factory in Wolfen, Germany.