Dennis Basaldella is a media studies scholar. Until March 2020 he was film archivist and head of the film collection at the Filmmuseum Potsdam, Germany. From 2014 to 2017/18 he was also member of the project staff in the research project “Regionale Bilder auf Filmen (1950–1990)” on amateur film in the GDR at the Filmmuseum in Potsdam. He received his doctoral degree from the University of Hamburg with a thesis on the work of freelance East German filmmaker Horst Klein (Ein Leben für den Film, Marburg 2020). The book was shortlisted for the Willy Haas Award 2020. Before his bachelor and master in European Media Studies at the University of Potsdam, he studied film directing at the Nuova Universitá del Cinema e Televisione in Rome, Italy. He conducts research on amateur film and freelance filmmakers in the GDR, biographies of unknown filmmakers and currently on independent film production in Germany before 1933.