The Filmarchiv Austria ("Austrian Film Archive") is an organisation for the discovery, reconstruction and preservation of Austrian film record material: films themselves, literature about film and cinema, or film-related periodicals. With over 260,000 film titles, 2,000,000 photographs and stills, 48,000 cinema programmes, 16,000 film posters, 30,000 books, and an extensive collection of apparatus, documents and costumes, it is the largest such organisation in Austria.
Research is always in progress on particular topics in order to enlarge the film content, covering all genres from advertising footage to experimental projects to light entertainment films. Of all the existing Austrian productions in the world from before 1945, over 95% are kept in the Filmarchiv Austria.
The Filmarchiv Austria is a member of FIAF (the International Federation of Film Archives).
History
Metro Kinokulturhaus in Vienna, run by Filmarchiv Austria
The present Filmarchiv Austria was founded on 17 October 1955, as the Österreichische Filmarchiv (ÖFA) ("Austrian Film Archive").
The first reconstruction of film material by the ÖFA, in 1961, was the 1926 film version of Der Rosenkavalier. Other major reconstruction projects have included the first Austrian feature film productions, those of Saturn-Film; the oldest extant Austrian drama film, Der Müller und sein Kind of 1911; and the classics Orlacs Hände ("The Hands of Orlac") and Die Sklavenkönigin ("The Slave Queen" or "The Moon of Israel"), which without this work would have remained inaccessible to the viewing public.
The Filmarchiv Austria, together with Der Standard, is also responsible for the selection and production of Der österreichische Film, an authoritative DVD series of significant Austrian films, consisting so far of 50 parts.
In 1965 a systematic programme began of conversion of film prints on the highly unstable cellulose nitrate base, which remained in commercial use into the 1950s, to security film.
In 1968 new premises were found in the Rauhensteingasse in central Vienna, while new storage and exhibition facilities were established in the Altes Schloss ("Old Castle"), Laxenburg. In 1997 the Österreichische Filmarchiv changed its name to Filmarchiv Austria, and established new central facilities at the Audiovisuelles Zentrum Wien-Augarten.
In 2001 the Filmarchiv-Studienzentrum was opened in the Augarten premises, incorporating the Filmdokumentationszentrum, formerly the largest private collection of film-related material in Austria, founded in 1965 by Herbert Holba and the film historian Peter Spiegel, on the basis of an earlier collection begun in 1945.
Collections
Advertisements for Saturn-Film productions, the earliest known Austrian feature films (Filmarchiv collection)
The collections of the Filmarchiv Austria comprehensively document Austrian cultural and social history. The oldest titles preserved are the sequences of Vienna taken by the Lumière Brothers in 1896. The oldest preserved native Austrian film is the documentary Der Kaiserbesuch in Braunau/Inn ("Visit of the Kaiser to Braunau am Inn") from 1903, shot by Johann Bläser, proprietor of a travelling film show, while the earliest extant Austrian feature films are the erotic productions of Saturn-Film from 1906 onwards.
Some of the more important collections include:
the Goldstaub collection: a highly significant collection from the early days of the Austrian cinema, with extensive documentary footage from the time of the monarchy;
the Reinthaler collection: Austria's largest cinematic collection from the years 1910–20;
the Köfinger collection: tourism films from the period of silent film;
a number of collections of cine-newsreels from the 1930s;
the archive of the major newsreel producer Austria Wochenschau, acquired in 1997
Braunau am Inn is a town in Upper Austria on the border with Germany. It is known for being the birthplace of Adolf Hitler.
Leopoldstadt is the 2nd municipal district of Vienna in Austria. As of 1 January 2016, there are 103,233 inhabitants over 19.27 km2 (7 sq mi). It is situated in the heart of the city and, together with Brigittenau, forms a large island surrounded by the Danube Canal and, to the north, the Danube. It is named after Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor. Due to its relatively high percentage of Jewish inhabitants before the Holocaust, Leopoldstadt gained the nickname Mazzesinsel. This context was a significant aspect for the district twinning with the New York City borough Brooklyn in 2007.
AMAG is the biggest company in the Austrian Aluminium industry sector. It is situated in the village of Ranshofen, which is in Braunau am Inn.
The Innviertel is a traditional Austrian region southeast of the Inn river. It forms the western part of the state of Upper Austria and borders the German state of Bavaria. The Innviertel is one of the four traditional "quarters" of Upper Austria, the others being Hausruckviertel, Mühlviertel, and Traunviertel.
The Austrian National Library is the largest library in Austria, with more than 12 million items in its various collections. The library is located in the Neue Burg Wing of the Hofburg in center of Vienna. Since 2005, some of the collections have been relocated within the Baroque structure of the Palais Mollard-Clary. Founded by the Habsburgs, the library was originally called the Imperial Court Library ; the change to the current name occurred in 1920, following the end of the Habsburg Monarchy and the proclamation of the Austrian Republic. The library complex includes four museums, as well as multiple special collections and archives.
Cinema of Austria refers to the film industry based in Austria. Austria has had an active cinema industry since the early 20th century when it was the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and that has continued to the present day. Producer Sascha Kolowrat-Krakowsky, producer-director-writer Luise Kolm and the Austro-Hungarian directors Michael Curtiz and Alexander Korda were among the pioneers of early Austrian cinema. Several Austrian directors pursued careers in Weimar Germany and later in the United States, among them Fritz Lang, G. W. Pabst, Josef von Sternberg, Billy Wilder, Fred Zinnemann, and Otto Preminger.
Der Müller und sein Kind is a silent film released in 1911 and is the oldest Austrian drama film to survive in its entirety. It was produced by the Österreichisch-Ungarische Kinoindustrie, which later in 1911 changed its name to the Wiener Kunstfilm-Industrie. The same company had filmed the same plot the previous year, but no footage from that earlier version survives.
Luise Fleck, also known as Luise Kolm or Luise Kolm-Fleck, née Louise or Luise Veltée, was an Austrian film director, and has been considered the second ever female feature film director in the world, after Alice Guy-Blaché. Her son, Walter Kolm-Veltée, was also a noted film director. Technically, however, the second female feature film director in the world after Alice Guy-Blaché was chronologically Ebba Lindkvist, having debuted as a film maker one year before Luise Fleck.
Anton Kolm was an Austrian photographer who became one of the first film directors and film producers in the history of Austrian cinema.
Wien-Film GmbH was a large Austrian film company, which in 1938 succeeded the Tobis-Sascha-Filmindustrie AG and lasted until 1985. Until 1945 the business was owned by the Cautio Trust Company, a subsidiary of the German Reichsfilmkammer, and was responsible for almost the entire production of films in the territory of the Ostmark, as Austria was called at that time.
Sodom und Gomorrha: Die Legende von Sünde und Strafe is an Austrian silent epic film from 1922. It was shot on the Laaer Berg, Vienna, as the enormous backdrops specially designed and constructed for the film were too big for the Sievering Studios of the production company, Sascha-Film, in Sievering. The film is distinguished, not so much by the strands of its often opaque plot, as by its status as the largest and most expensive film production in Austrian film history. In the creation of the film between 3,000 and 14,000 performers, extras and crew were employed.
Wiener Kunstfilm, in full Wiener Kunstfilm-Industrie, was the first major Austrian film production company. Founded in 1910 as the Erste österreichische Kinofilms-Industrie, it was a pioneer in almost every field of silent film in Austria.
The Hands of Orlac is a 1924 Austrian silent body horror film directed by Robert Wiene and starring Conrad Veidt, Alexandra Sorina and Fritz Kortner. It is based on the novel Les Mains d'Orlac by Maurice Renard.
The Moon of Israel is a 1924 Austrian epic film. It was directed by Mihaly Kertész. The script was written by Ladislaus Vajda, based on H. Rider Haggard's 1918 novel Moon of Israel, which in its turn was inspired by the Biblical story of the Exodus.
The Augarten is a public park of 52.2 hectares situated in the Leopoldstadt, the second district of Vienna, Austria. It contains the city's oldest Baroque park.
The City Without Jews is a 1924 Austrian Expressionist film by Hans Karl Breslauer, based on the novel of the same title by Hugo Bettauer. The film is one of the few surviving Expressionist films from Austria and has therefore been well researched. The film was first shown on 25 July 1924 in Vienna.
The Theatermuseum is a federal museum of national theatre history. Since 1991 it is situated in the Palais Lobkowitz in Vienna.
Die Pratermizzi is an Austrian silent drama film directed by Gustav Ucicky in 1926, released in January 1927, and starring Anny Ondra, Igo Sym and Nita Naldi. The film was long believed lost until its rediscovery in 2005. The film's art direction was by Artur Berger and Emil Stepanek.
Johann Schwarzer was an Austrian photographer and pioneer producer of adult films through his Saturn-Film company.
The Austrian Film Museum is a film archive and museum located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Peter Konlechner and Peter Kubelka in 1964 as a non-profit organization.
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