Cinema of Austria

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Austria has produced a number of films in the cinema industry. Among the most important Austrian directors are Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder, Fred Zinnemann, Otto Preminger and Michael Haneke. However, many of these directors made their most important films outside Austria. Major actors include Arnold Schwarzenegger, Klaus Maria Brandauer, Maximilian Schell, Romy Schneider, Peter Lorre, Oskar Werner and Curd Jürgens.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Before 1918 1.2 1918 to 1936 1.3 1936 to 1945 1.4 1945 to 1970 1.5 After 1970 2 Films 3 Directors 4 Actors

[edit] History

[edit] Before 1918

The first film released by an Austrian film-maker contained a series short erotic movies, produced by the photographer Johann Schwarzer who founded the Saturn-Film company in 1906, that were distributed internationally. Some of his productions could be found and restored in recent years by the Filmarchiv Austria. Between 1896 and about 1905 it were only newsreels which were produced in Austria, the most of them by french companies, such as Pathé Frères and Gaumont.

The first serious movie productions came out in 1910 when the Erste österreichisch-ungarische Kinofilms-Industrie was founded by Anton Kolm, his wife Luise Kolm and Jacob Fleck. They started with newsreels but soon started with producing fictional movies. In 1912, Count Sascha Kolowrat-Krakowsky founded the Sascha-Film industry. As count from Bohemia he owned a lot of many which he invested in his film company. Until the end of the first World War it grew to the biggest Austrian film company, bigger than its biggest concurrent, the Wiener Kunstfilm. The Austrian film industry grew very strong after the beginning of the first World War, because many foreign companies, such as the very strong french film industry, were not allowed anymore to produce and show films in Austria. During the five years of the first World War, nearly 200 movies were produced - double as much than in all the years before.

Directors as Erich von Stroheim or Josef von Sternberg emigrated already in that time to start there career in the United States, were a couple of Austrians contributed to the success of the Hollywood films.

[edit] 1918 to 1936

After the end of the first World War, the film production was still growing, because the Austrian currency, the Krone, was very weak, so that Austrian movies were cheaper than movies from other countries. Many films at that time were worse than those of established film nations like France, Great Britain, Denmark, Germany and Italy. But in the big mass of simple productions were also films of companies and directors who attached importance to high quality movies. So it happened that the expressionism, a flow which existed mainly in the post-war Germany and Austria, found its beginnings not only in the German but also in the Austrian film. For example Paul Czinner "Inferno" (1920). The script to one of the most importan expressionistic films, the German "Das Kabinett des Dr. Caligari" (1920), was written by the two Austrians Carl Mayer und Hans Janowitz, who worked also in Berlin at that time as Fritz Lang and Paul Czinner, because Berlin was the most important place of the German language area for the film industry. The Austrian Fritz Kortner, who also worked a lot in Germany, but also in Austrian pre-expressionist productions just as "Der Mandarin" (1918), was one of the best expressionist actors. The best known Austrian expressionist film is "The Hands of Orlac" (1924), by German director Robert Wiene with Conrad Veidt and Fritz Kortner starring.

In the years 1919 to 1922, the Austrian film production reached its alltime-peak, with a yearly output of 100 to 140 films.

In 1923 the whole European film industry started decreasing because of the strong growing American concurrence. US-films were exported very cheap to Europe, because the production costs were already earned in the American cinemas. So the European film industry, divided into many different countries and many different language, could not produce good movies that cheap, as to make concurrence to the US-films. Another fact, which affected Germany and Austria, was, that the inflation could be contained. Austrian movies were not that cheap anymore, so the export rate sank. That is why the Austrian film production sank until the mid-twenties to a level which is adequate for a small country (Austria decreased to 7 million inhabitants after the First World War) - between 20 and 30 films per year.

The 1920s were also the time of epic films, as they were produced in the United States (David Griffith) and Italy the years before. In Austria, the Austro-Hungarian directors Michael Curtiz and Alexander Korda produced a couple of epic films for the Sascha-Film and the Vita-Film (the successor of the Wiener Kunstfilm), such as "Prinz und Bettelknabe" (1920), "Samson und Delila" (1922), "Sodom und Gomorrha" (1922), "Der junge Medardus" (1923), "Die Sklavenkönigin" (1924), "Harun al Rashid" (1924) and "Salammbo" (1925). These movies were the biggest movies ever produced in Austria, with enormous production costs and up to 10,000 supernumeraries, including all their costumes. Also the biggest scenes were needed, such as the "Temple of Sodom", which were planned and built by austrias top set designers of the time, Emil Stepanek, Artur Berger and Julius von Borsody. The who-is-who of the Austrian film scene met to work on these movies. Top-cinematographers as Franz Planer and Hans Theyer photographed the films, and the wifes of the directors, Lucy Doraine (Michael Curtiz) and Maria Corda (Alexander Korda) starred in these movies, surrounded by Austrian film and theatre stars like Hans Thimig, Walter Slezak, Oskar Beregi, Hans Marr and others. Also some film stars of later years, for example Willi Forst, screened up in one of these movies as extras.

In the whole silent movie-era, about 1000 Austrian movies were produced.

From 1933 to 1936 Austria was the target of many German film-artists, who emigrated from Nazi-Germany to different countries, such as Austria. For example the directors and nazi-critics Erich Engel und Werner Hochbaum.

[edit] 1936 to 1945

Though Austria was annexed to Germany in 1938, Jews were forbidden to work in the Austrian film industry from 1936 on. In 1936, Austria forbid Jewish people to work in the Austrian film industry, because of strong German pressure. Germany, as the largest country of German speaking people, was the most important export country for Austrian films. Films, in which Jewish people contributed, were forbidden in Germany from the beginning of the nazi-regime on. The only exception was for unknown reasons the critic film "Episode" (1935) of the Jewish Walter Reisch. The nazis threatened Austria to forbid all Austrian movies to be shown in Germany, thats why the Austrian film producers accepted the German conditions. The most of the Austrian directors, actors and other employees of the film industry who were Jewish emigrated in the following years to France, Czechoslovakia, Great Britain and the United States. Some others, who could not emigrate for some reasons or who did not want to imagine what will happen in the following years, were cought by the nazis and died in concentration camps. But not only Jewish people emigrated - also many critics of the nazis emigrated too, because they were not allowed to make films. Many of these emigrants started a successful career in the United States, for example the directors Billy Wilder, Fred Zinnemann, Otto Preminger, Joe May, Edgar G. Ulmer.

The rest of the film people arranged with the new nazi-leadership - some out of freewill and others because they could not or did not want to emigrate. Others preferred to stop making movies during the nazi regimes or to hide in the underground, for example the famous costume designer Gerdago (i.e. costumes for the Sissi-movies of the 1950s).

The whole Austrian film industry was quickly integrated in the Wien-Film, which was the new name of the Sascha-Film, after it was confiscated by the nazis with the help of the Creditanstalt bank. The Wien-Film produced only a few propaganda films, the most other movies seemed to be harmless comedies, but they contained and transported antisemitic and antidemocratic ethic. Though the nazis had a very strength censurship, a few films made to contain critic dialogs - tarned in metaphoric phrases. This happend i.e. in movies of Willi Forst.

[edit] 1945 to 1970

The time between 1945 and 1970 was the big time of the musical comedies, which have already calendared the 1930s, and of sentimental films with regional background, the so called "Heimatfilme". The Austrian cities were destroyed after the second World War, so the filmmakers made their movies on the countryside to show the population the "good and beautiful" Austria. The Austrian population rebuilt Austria until the 1950s, when the "economy wonder" started. In that time, the people did not want to see serious or critic movies, they want to see a safe and undestroyed world. Many of the comedies of that time played in the austro-Hungarian monarchy, because that time is identified with luxury, beautifulness, elegancy romance and of a strong, big and peaceful Austria. That's why the Sissi-films were that popular, not only in Austria but also in many countries of the world. A lot of movies like the Sissi-anthology were produced in those years. Austrian film stars of that time (1950s and 1960s) were Peter Alexander, Attila Hörbiger, Magda Schneider, Wolf Albach-Retty, Romy Schneider, Hans Moser and many others.

[edit] After 1970

cinema-film production
Year	Amount
2000	17
2001	12
2002	26
2003	20
2004	24
2005	24

The 1970s were the years with the lowest film production in Austria ever. Only 5 to 10 movies were produced every year. With the succes of television, the reactionary Austrian film industry went down. At the same time, a new, young and critic generation of filmmakers came out with their often experimental productions - the Austrian avantgarde movement. Avantgarde-filmmakers, some of them already started in the late 1950s, were Peter Kubelka, Franz Novotny, Ernst Schmid Jr., Ferry Radax, Kurt Kren, Valie Export, Otto Muehl, Peter Weibel and others.

After decades of complaining about the bad film politics of Austria, at least in 1980 the film promotion started. A new film-industry could start to develop, though the Austrian film industry will never be that big as it was in the 1920s and 1930s and in the 1950s, because the times have changed - people have televisions, computers and many other leisure time possibilities.

The Austrian film started discovering all the different film genres again, after they were forgotten in the 1930s, when mainly comedies were produced until the 1950s and 60s. In fact, comedies are still very popular in Austria, but they have completely other contents nowadays. The other genre, the most present in current Austrian film scene, is the drama. Action movies, thrillers, fantasy-films, horror films and the most other genres could never establish in Austria, at least because of their demand to expensive special effects and their high production costs. Austrian movies of the 21st Century usually do not cost more than 1 to 2 million euros (maximum 2.5 million dollars), because these costs could not be earned on the market - the export rate is very low and the Austrian market is too small for expensive productions. Nearly the whole distribution system is in the hand of the mayor American film companies, which rule also the Austrian market with their complex exploitation system. This causes the very big problem of nearly no marketing and publicity for Austrian movies in the public, because foreign distributors prefere to advertise their own productions.

Since the 1990s, the Austrian film industry could reposition itself. A few established but also new and talented directors organised theirself in own film-companies to share resources and to learn from each other. The other film companies, the biggest are the Dor-Film and the Allegro-Film with at least two films for the cinema, concentrates of course on commercial successful productions, such as comedies with very popular Austrian Cabaret-Stars (Comedians). Comedies like Hinterholz 8 or Poppitz were the most seen Austrian movies in Austria in the last 25 years. But also serious films are produced by these companies, but only in a limited amount, because the companies need to be financed and other productions then comedies are kind of risky in Austria - except they are planned to be distributed in foreign countries where high enough visitor figures can be expected.

The share of visitors of Austrian films to be visited in Austrian cinemas is one of the lowest in Europe, with only about 3 % of all visitors in Austrian cinemas. The top ten in Austrian cinema-charts of every year are usually all American-movies.

The high quality Austrian movies, which earn more and more film- in recent years, are usually produced by small Austrian film productions, often in co-production with other countries, i.e. Die Klavierspielerin or Caché by Michael Haneke, the probably most famous Austrian director at the moment. Other successful film productions after the year 2000 are We feed the World (Erwin Wagenhofer), Darwin's Nightmare (Hubert Sauper), Calling Hedy Lamarr (Georg Misch), Grbavica (international co-production; Jasmila Zbanic), Slumming (Michael Glawogger), Silentium and Komm, süßer Tod (both Wolfgang Murnberger), Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei (Hans Weingartner) and Dog Days (Ulrich Seidl). Other notable directors are Barbara Albert, Andrea Maria Dusl, Elisabeth Scharang, Jessica Hausner, Stefan Ruzowitzky, Ruth Mader, Kurt Palm, Nikolaus Geyrhalter and the in the USA living Robert Dornhelm.

Most seen Austrian movies in Austrian cinemas since 1981, per March 20, 2006; Source: Österreichisches Filminstitut (www.filminstitut.at)
#	Film	Prod.- company	Director	Visitors
1	Hinterholz 8	Dor Film	Harald Sicheritz	617.558
2	Poppitz	Dor Film	Harald Sicheritz	441.017
3	Müllers Büro	Wega Film	Niki List	441.000
4	Schlafes Bruder	Dor Film	Joseph Vilsmaier	307.300
5	MA 2412 - Der Film	MR Film	Harald Sicheritz	272.849
6	Komm, süßer Tod	Dor Film	Wolfgang Murnberger	230.361
7	Indien	Dor Film	Paul Harather	223.680
8	Sei zärtlich, Pinguin	Köpf Film	Peter Hajek	210.000
9	Silentium	Dor Film	Wolfgang Murnberger	204.802
10	Wanted	MR Film	Harald Sicheritz	187.542
11	We Feed the World	Allegro Film	Erwin Wagenhofer	183.379
12	Freispiel	Scheiderbauer Film	Harald Sicheritz	173.658
13	Eine fast perfekte Scheidung	Star Film	Reinhard Schwabenitzky	156.600
14	Ein fast perfekter Seitensprung	Star Film	Reinhard Schwabenitzky	151.000
15	Hasenjagd	Provinz Film	Andreas Gruber	122.634

[edit] Films

List of Austrian films

[edit] Directors

Current and historic directors:

• Barbara Albert
• Franz Antel
• Ruth Beckermann
• Eduard von Borsody
• Hans Karl Breslauer
• Rudolph Cartier
• Axel Corti
• Joseph Delmont
• Alfred Deutsch-German
• Andrea Maria Dusl
• Friedrich Fehér
• Jakob Fleck
• Luise Fleck
• Florian Flicker
• Willi Forst
• Fritz Freisler
• Walter Friedemann
• Nikolaus Geyrhalter
• Michael Glawogger
• Wolfgang Glück
• Andreas Gruber
• Leopold Hainisch
• Peter Hajek
• Emmerich Hanus
• Heinz Hanus
• Michael Haneke
• Paul Harather
• Karl Hartl
• Jessica Hausner
• Ernst Hofbauer
• Egon Humer
• Anton Kolm
• Michael Kreihsl
• Kurt Kren
• Hans Otto Löwenstein
• Leopold Lummerstorfer
• Mansur Madavi
• Ruth Mader
• Ernst Marischka
• Herbert Marischka
• Joe May
• Wolfgang Murnberger
• Kurt Nachmann
• Max Neufeld
• Richard Oswald
• Peter Patzak
• Paul Poet
• Otto Preminger
• Harald Reinl
• Stefan Ruzowitzky
• Anja Salomonowitz
• Hubert Sauper
• Reinhard Schwabenitzky
• Ulrich Seidl
• Harald Sicheritz
• Wilhelm Thiele
• Luis Trenker
• Georg Tressler
• Mirjam Unger
• Gustav Ucicky
• Berthold Viertel
• Hans Weingartner
• Bernhard Wicki
• Virgil Widrich
• Herbert Wise

[edit] Actors

• Maria Anna Adamberger
• Peter Alexander
• Helga Anders
• Leon Askin
• John Banner
• Senta Berger
• Theodore Bikel
• Katharina Böhm
• Klaus Maria Brandauer
• Mady Christians
• Mercedes Echerer
• Andrea Eckert
• Karl Farkas
• O. W. Fischer
• Käthe Gold
• Waltraut Haas
• Karlheinz Hackl
• Paul Henreid
• Hansi Hinterseer
• Oscar Homolka
• Attila Hörbiger
• Christiane Hörbiger
• Xaver Hutter
• Curd Jürgens
• Gustav Kadelburg
• Alexander Kerst
• Sonja Kirchberger
• Dagmar Koller
• Barbara Kowa
• Ida Krottendorf
• Cindy Kurleto
• Lotte Ledl
• Lotte Lenya
• Gerlinde Locker
• Helmuth Lohner
• Ferdinand Marian
• Karl von Marinelli
• Josef Meinrad
• Marisa Mell
• Karl Merkatz
• Tobias Moretti
• Fritz Muliar
• Reggie Nalder
• Dorothea Neff
• Johann Nestroy
• Susi Nicoletti
• Eric Pohlmann
• Alf Poier
• Hanno Pöschl
• Helmut Qualtinger
• Freddy Quinn
• Ferdinand Raimund
• Fred Raul
• Lukas Resetarits
• Annie Rosar
• Eva Rueber-Staier
• Otto Schenk
• Walter Schmidinger
• Oskar Sima
• Walter Slezak
• Adolf von Sonnenthal
• Nadja Tiller
• Christoph Waltz
• Kurt Weinzierl
• Franziska Weisz
• Oskar Werner
• Paula Wessely
• Rudolf Wessely
• Helmut Wiesinger
• Charlotte Wolter
• Carsten Zimmermann
• Yetta Zwerling

Cinema of Austria
Actors • Directors • Films A-Z • Chronology of films • Cinematographers • Festivals • Producers • Screenwriters •