Annual Report 2015 - Österreichisches Filmmuseum

Annual Report 2015 - Österreichisches Filmmuseum

Österreichisches Filmmuseum / The Austrian Film Museum
ANNUAL REPORT 2015
In 2015, the Austrian Film Museum continued its work in programming, publishing, education and
preservation, with again a strong focus on collection-related activities. Our programming once again
attempted to provide an analytical and in-depth view of the medium and its history. Apart from the
thematic and monographic retrospectives two cyclical programmes offer complimentary ways of
understanding film (history): Was ist Film (What is Film) and Die Utopie Film (The Utopia of Film).
The Film Museum also continued its publication of film books and DVD editions, the latter as an
educational tool to support the promotion of film history in a “catalogue-like” format, distinct from
the exhibition of film-as-film.
Programming
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Monographical retrospectives and “in person“ programs:
Vittorio de Sica; Ritwik Ghatak (1/15); Jean-Luc Godard – The First Wave; In person: Jonathan
Schwartz (3/15); On Dangerous Ground: Losey, Ray, Welles; In person: Don Hertzfeldt
(5-6/15); Joseph Cornell; Manoel de Oliveira; In person: Clemens von Wedemeyer (10-11/15);
John Cassavetes; Harold Lloyd (12/15)
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Thematic programs and retrospectives:
Asphalt: City People and Weimar Cinema; Second Lives: Recent Restorations from the
Film Museum (2/15); Scared of Schengen: Euro-Horror today (3/15); Glorious Technicolor;
Liberation Footage – Atrocity Pictures (4/15); The Syrian Modernists: Omar Amiralay,
Mohamad Malas, Ossama Mohammed (5-6/2015); Noir / Polar: the French Crime Thriller
1930-1960; L.A. Rebellion: Creating a New Black Cinema (9-10/15); Animals – A Brief Zoology
of Cinema (10-11/15); The GPO Film Unit (12/15)
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Special Events:
The German Battleship by Sergej Eisenstein and Edmund Meisel (2/15); There’ll Be No Tears
Tonight. Michael Glawogger: A Film and a Novel (4/15); The Long Night of Museums (10/15);
Austrian Premieres & World Premieres of films Peter & Bobby Farrelly, Manfred Neuwirth,
Andrej Končalovskij, Aleksej Fedorčenko, agnes b., Christian Frosch and Naji Abu Nowar
(1-12/15)
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Ongoing Series:
“Was ist Film” and “Die Utopie Film”, every Tuesday
Special events and programmes
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International Home Movie Day, Vienna, jointly organized by the Film Museum, the Vienna
Library and several other partners
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Open Air film series Doppelgänger in the framework of Vienna’s open-air cinema, Kino unter
Sternen
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Long Night of Museums: The Film Museum again took part in this major cultural
manifestation in the city of Vienna, presenting a number of short programmes from the
“sidelines” of film history.
Exhibition Idee Europa – 200 Jahre Wiener Kongress (9 June to 31 October 2015):
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For this major exhibition organized by the Austrian Federal Chancellery and the Austrian
State Archives to mark the 200th anniversary of the Congress of Vienna, the Film Museum
contributed a multiscreen video installation focussing on the early German musical film
Der Kongress tanzt (1931, Erik Charell).
The Film Museum’s regular educational events remained in high demand. Through these
programmes, moderated by film artists and young scholars, thousands of school-children
between age 8 and 18 are being confronted with the history, aesthetics and politics of the
film medium each year.
The eighth Film Museum Summer School, a four-day advanced training workshop for school
teachers who want to include film in their classes, was once again booked out.
Throughout the year the Film Museum engages in cooperative efforts with universities,
museums and contemporary art spaces in Austria and abroad. Regular Partnerships exist with
the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, the Ludwig Boltzmann
Institute for History and Society, Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum and mumok – Museum
of Modern Art, the Wiener Konzerthaus, the festivals Diagonale, Crossing Europe and
Viennale – Vienna International Film Festival, as well as the Vienna Art Week and the Wien
Museum.
International relations: Guests
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Among the filmmakers and artists giving lectures, introducing screenings or offering
workshop discussions were: agnes b, Marcel Ophuls, Tippi Hedren, Christian Frosch,
Manfred Neuwirth, Verena Paravel, Peter Schreiner, Ulrich Seidl, Clemens von Wedemeyer,
Michael Robinson, Jonathan Schwartz, Don Hertzfeldt, Wolfgang Thaler, Gunter Zehetner,
Martin Reinhart, Sebastian Brameshuber, Veronika Franz, Severin Fiala, Michael Palm,
Wolfgang Murnberger, Karl Markovics, Jessica Hausner, Lukas Marxt, Jola Wieczorek and
Peter Tscherkassky. Author Eva Menasse and actors Michou Friesz, Karl Fischer and Hary
Prinz participated in the launch of Michael Glawogger’s posthumously published novel
69 Hotelzimmer.
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Curators, archivists, writers and scholars who gave lectures or introductions in the framework
of our programme included: Jose Manuel Costa, Hannes Bruhwiler & Lukas Foerster, Naoko
Kaltschmidt, Michael Omasta, Drehli Robnik, Michael Palm, Jasper Sharp, Stefan Stiletto,
Natascha Unkart, Nikolaus Zeiner, Rosalie Topfer, Peter Huemer, Wolfgang Pielmeier,
Norman Shetler, Janna Lihl, Katja Jager, Dominik Tschutscher, Ursula Wolschlager, Veronika
Franz and Ingo Zechner. Siegfried Mattl, one of Austria’s leading scholars of contemporary
history and the Film Museum’s most important partner in its research activities, sadly passed
away in April after severe illness.
Publications
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In 2015, the Film Museum published one DVD within the series Edition Filmmuseum.
It presents Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s debut feature Mysterious Object at Noon (2000),
recently restored by the Austrian Film Museum in co-operation with The Film Foundation
from the best surviving elements. The DVD also includes three short works, selected by the
director himself (thirdworld [1997], Worldly Desires [2005] and Monsoon [2011]) plus the
now out-of-print Film Museum book about Weerasethakul as a DVD-ROM feature.
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In the book series FilmmuseumSynemaPublikationen, begun in 2005, one new volume was
published. Abenteuer Alltag. Zur Archäologie des Amateurfilms, edited by Siegfried Mattl,
Carina Lesky, Vraath Ohner and Ingo Zechner is the first German-language overview of
archival-based research on amateur film in Europe.
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On its official website, the Film Museum published its complete holdings of the newsreel
series Österreich in Bild und Ton (Austria in Sound and Vision). The collection comprises
264 individual issues with a total running time of 34 hours that cover the years 1935 to 1937.
The collection can be accessed directly at the following URL: http://www.filmmuseum.
at/sammlungen/filmsammlung_und_restaurierung/
film_online/oesterreich_in_bild_und_ton_19351937
Acquisitions
The Film Museum’s collections are growing constantly – by acquisitions, deposits, and donations.
The special anniversary project of 2014, inviting individuals and companies to sponsor the acquisition
of a film print, was continued in 2015, although in a smaller scale. In total, the film collection was
expanded by works by Hany Abu-Assad, Maren Ade, Chantal Akerman, Hans Albala, Robert Altman,
Paul Thomas Anderson, Tex Avery, Rebecca Baron, Bong Joon-ho, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, John
Carpenter, Joe Dante, Guy Debord, Walt Disney, Sergej Dvortsevoj, Harun Farocki, Veronika Franz &
Severin Fiala, Matteo Garrone, Jean-Luc Godard, Catherine Hardwicke, Todd Haynes, Thomas Heise,
Don Hertzfeldt, Werner Herzog, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Barbara Kopple, Richard Linklater, Peter
Lorre, Johann Lurf, Leo Mittler, Nanni Moretti, Jafar Panahi, Nick Park, Trey Parker & Matt Stone, Pier
Paolo Pasolini, Christian Petzold, Otto Preminger, Satyajit Ray, Alain Resnais, Michael Robinson, Billy
Roisz, Jeff Scher, Helge Schneider, Fridolin Schonwiese, Martin Scorsese, Norman Taurog, Shinya
Tsukamoto, Wong Kar-wai, Klaus Wyborny and many others. The Film Museum’s large collection of
amateur films and other ‘ephemeral’ kinds of filmmaking has been further expanded with private
deposits and donations.
Preservation
In 2015, preservation and restoration projects included:
• The Salvation Hunters (1925, Josef von Sternberg) in collaboration with ZDF/Arte and based
on the UCLA Film and Television Archive’s preservation; completed and premiered at the
Vienna Konzerthaus in October 2015
• From the Notebook of … (1971, Robert Beavers); completed in 2015 and premiered at the
66th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2016
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Mister Radio (1924, Nunzio Malasomma); completed and premiered at the XXIV. Giornate del
Cinema Muto (Pordenone) in October 2015
Pacific Motion (1981, Michael Glawogger); work-in-progress presented at the Diagonale –
Festival of Austrian Film (Graz) in March 2015
Africa Before Dark (1928, Walt Disney, Animation: Ub Iwerks) in collaboration with Walt
Disney Animation Studios; completed and premiered in Los Angeles in June 2015
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International relations: Exchange
Via exchange of prints, joint preservation and research efforts, and international travel, the contact
between the Film Museum and its international colleagues remained very active during 2015.
Film Museum staff members Alejandro Bachmann, Paolo Caneppele, Oliver Hanley, Adelheid
Heftberger, Alexander Horwath, Regina Schlagnitweit and Alessandra Thiele attended film festivals in
Berlin, Bologna, Bonn, Cannes, Hamburg, Pordenone, Rotterdam, Venice and the FIAF Congress in
Sidney and Canberra, and presented lectures and introduced their projects at several international
conferences, festivals and venues, among others at: Narodni filmovy archiv (Prague), Deutsches
Filmmuseum (Frankfurt/M), Brandenburgisches Zentrum fur Medienwissenschaften (Potsdam),
Bundeszentrale fur politische Bildung (Berlin), London Film Festival/BFI Southbank (London), LUFF Lausanne Underground Film & Music Festival, Museum Documentation Centre (Zagreb) and Kinothek
Asta Nielsen e.V. (Frankfurt/M).
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