A color dye factory was established at the Rummelsburger See near Berlin in 1867, its name was changed to AGFA (Actien-Gesellschaft für Anilin-Fabrikation) in 1873.

In 1932, the process of making Triacetate Cellulose (TAC) film was patented at the Wolfen facility [4] The Agfa Wolfen plant developed the first modern colour film, which incorporated colour couplers, Agfacolor Neu,[5] in 1936, which simplified processing compared to its contemporary Kodak Kodachrome from 1935.

On 20 April 1945, following the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, the Wolfen plant was taken over by US forces, and important patents and other documents regarding the Agfacolor process were confiscated and handed over to Western competitors, such as Kodak and Ilford.

Agfa AG (Leverkusen), by then a subsidiary of Bayer was subsequently merged with Gevaert based in Mortsel, Belgium in 1964 to form Agfa-Gevaert.

The now Kombinat also began developing and producing other information recording materials, such as magnetic, video and computer tapes.

ORWO-branded 35mm colour slide film became available in the United Kingdom in the 1970s through magazine advertisements for mail order suppliers.

ORWO prepared the changeover from AgfaColor to C-41, similar to considerations in the USSR, but had not completed until the end of the GDR,[7] which led to decreasing sales figures in the western countries, where the Kodak C-41 process dominated the market.

[8] Following German reunification in 1990 the holding company was privatised as ORWO AG with Folienwerk Wolfen GmbH an early spin off.

[11] The FilmoTec GmbH was formed in 1998 to continue to manufacture a range of Black and white camera and technical films for motion picture use under the ORWO brand.

In 2020, twenty employees work in the areas of research, development, production, configuration, and distribution of ORWO black and white films.

For example, black-and-white movies that have been selected by the US Library of Congress for archival copy preservation in the last five years have been most likely reprocessed onto ORWO film.

It undertakes the manufacture of coated films for a number of companies including Polaroid B.V., Adox, Bergger, Lomography and ORWO Filmotec.