Filmarchiv Austria

The Filmarchiv Austria is Austria’s national film archive, holding more than 260,000 films alongside photographs, posters, books and equipment. Based in Vienna, it also maintains storage and study facilities in Laxenburg’s Altes Schloss. The archive preserves every Austrian production made before 1945 that still exists anywhere in the world. Its collections range from early Lumière Brothers footage of 1896 to advertising films, experimental works and entertainment movies. It belongs to the International Federation of Film Archives, working with partners worldwide. The archive grew from the Österreichische Filmarchiv founded in 1955. In 1961 it reconstructed the 1926 film version of Der Rosenkavalier, and later restored classics such as Orlacs Hände and Die Sklavenkönigin. In 1965 it began converting unstable nitrate prints to safety film. The archive also produced a 50-part DVD series of key Austrian films with the newspaper Der Standard. In 2001 it opened the Filmarchiv-Studienzentrum in Augarten, incorporating the former Filmdokumentationszentrum founded in 1965 by Herbert Holba and Peter Spiegel. Visitors find the archive’s collections arranged by theme and period. The oldest preserved Austrian film is Der Kaiserbesuch in Braunau/Inn from 1903. The Goldstaub collection offers early documentary footage from the monarchy, while the Reinthaler collection covers 1910 to 1920. The Köfinger collection holds silent-era tourism films, and the Austria Wochenschau archive contains 1930s newsreels. Study rooms and exhibition spaces allow close examination of prints, posters and apparatus.