ORWO film
ORWO is a historic German film manufacturer tracing its roots back over a century to the original Agfa Wolfen factory, and remains one of the very few companies in the world still coating black and white and colour film from scratch. Compare ORWO film prices on Filmproof.
About ORWO
The History of ORWO
ORWO's history dates back to 1909-1910 and the Agfa Wolfen film factory in Germany, famous for developing Agfacolor Neu in 1936, the first modern multi-layer colour film. After the Second World War, the factory found itself under Soviet and then East German control, and in 1964, following trade rules barring Eastern Bloc use of the Agfa name, it was renamed ORWO, short for "ORiginal WOlfen".
The original state-owned combine was liquidated in 1994, but film production continued through ORWO FilmoTec GmbH, formed in 1998 and still based in Wolfen and Bitterfeld, Germany, with coating carried out at InovisCoat in Monheim am Rhein. Both facilities came under the ownership of Jake Seal's Seal 1818 GmbH in 2020, and in 2026 ownership passed to Optik Oldschool, continuing more than a century of near-unbroken film manufacturing at the same historic German site.
ORWO's Camera Film Ranges
ORWO's range spans black and white 16mm and 35mm negative and print film, along with duplicating, internegative, soundtrack and laboratory film used across both cinema and still photography. Named stocks in trade circulation include DN21 and DN54 black and white cine films, UN54, N75 and NP100 black and white negative options, and NC400 and NC500 colour negative film, reflecting ORWO's continued dual focus on motion picture and still photography markets.
Choosing the Right ORWO Film
ORWO's black and white stocks such as NP100 offer a genuinely different manufacturing lineage to more familiar Western brands, appealing to photographers curious about classic East German emulsion character. For colour, NC400 and NC500 provide options rooted in the same historic Wolfen factory. Compare ORWO film prices on Filmproof.