The earliest cinematic evidence of Wiesbaden was produced between 1900 and 1910, with titles such as "Kaiserfesttage in Wiesbaden" (1900), "Blumenkorso in Wiesbaden" (1908) and "Rennen in Wiesbaden" (1910) capturing short documentary scenes of local events. The first full-length Wiesbaden feature film was produced by a Berlin company in 1918: "Unter falscher Maske". In the same year, Edwin "Edy" Georg Dengel founded Wiesbaden's first film production company, the Axa-Film Company, based in Biebrich. As producer, author, director and leading actor, Dengel realized numerous serial detective, slapstick and wild west films based on the American model. Further film companies were founded in Wiesbaden at the beginning of the 1920s.

The division of Germany into four occupation zones by the victorious powers after the end of the Second World War favoured the development of decentralized structures, which also affected the film industry. New production facilities were established in Bendestorf near Hamburg, in Göttingen and in Wiesbaden. From January 1949, a film studio with an attached copying plant was set up there on the former Unter den Eichen recreational grounds as a branch of the Berlin AFIFA (Aktiengesellschaft für Filmproduktion). The driving force behind this was the mayor at the time, Hans Heinrich Redlhammer, who (together with the director Curt Oertel and with the involvement of the US occupation authorities) pursued a committed, relevant location policy. In the spring of 1949, the first post-war film to be shot in Wiesbaden was "Mordprozess Dr. Jordan", produced by Comedia-Film, the joint company of Heinz Rühmann and the former Ufa production manager Alf Teichs. With a covered area of 1,800 m2, 115 employees and an outdoor area of 10,000 m2, Wiesbaden had the third largest film studio in West Germany in 1950 after Berlin-Tempelhof and Munich-Geiselgasteig.

However, the order situation for German productions was generally difficult in the young Federal Republic, which was flooded with films of American origin in particular. In order to counter the crisis situation and promote the domestic film industry, the Bundestag approved a sum of DM 20 million in the form of deficiency guarantees in the spring of 1950; the state of Hesse and the city of Wiesbaden joined in. The state aid also had an effect at Unter den Eichen. Well-known projects during this phase were Geza von Bolvary's operetta film adaptation "Wedding Night in Paradise" with Johannes Heesters, "The Tiger Akbar" by the "sensational actor" Harry Piel and Rolf Hansen's "The Last Recipe". As many films made with guarantee funds were commercially unsuccessful, this led to renewed stagnation at Unter den Eichen. Of the eight feature film projects planned for 1951, only four could be realized. In order to compensate for the shortfalls, the production of industrial and advertising films was increasingly switched to. The establishment of the newsreel "Blick in die Welt" and a dubbing studio were also intended to help bridge the production slump in the feature film sector. Despite sobering figures, the federal government decided to continue the guarantee campaign for film productions in the spring of 1953. In the same year, ten feature films were made in Wiesbaden alone, including "Wenn der weiße Flieder wieder blüht" with Magda and Romy Schneider - the latter in her debut role, "Staatsanwältin Corda" and the German-American co-production "Martin Luther". In the following two years, the studio capacity at Unter den Eichen remained well utilized.

In the spring of 1955, the liquidator in charge of unbundling the former Reich-owned film assets announced that the Wiesbaden AFIFA complex was to be separated from UFI and sold. The privatization that was then initiated led to Unter den Eichen, together with the state guarantee aid that expired at the end of 1955, to an extensive production standstill. After years of negotiations, the AFIFA studio was acquired by Karl Schulz's private Taunus-Film GmbH in April 1959. However, hopes for a sustainable revival of the studio's operations were not fulfilled - at least not for the production of feature films in Wiesbaden. Their end was sealed with the rise of television at the end of the 1950s.