Saturn: The Embarrassing (?) Beginnings of Austrian Feature Film
Beata Kosińska-Krippner
beata.krippner@ispan.plInstitute of Art, Polish Academy of Sciences (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8096-9708
Abstract
Johann Schwarzer (1880-1914) founded in Vienna the first Austrian film company, Saturn-Film, which in 1906-1910 produced only erotic films, today considered the first feature films made in Austria by Austrians. Thanks to an intense international search, the employees of Österreichische Filmarchiv managed to find a total of over 30 films from this studio, which for years had been considered lost. The text outlines a short history of Saturn and the characteristics of selected films by Schwarzer. The author of the article also points out the reluctance of, inter alia, some Austrian film historians, in accepting the erotic origins of their native cinematography, which resulted in a distortion of the historical reconstruction of Austrian filmography.
Keywords:
Johann Schwarzer, Saturn-Film, erotic movies, Austrian cinema, first Austrian feature filmsReferences
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Authors
Beata Kosińska-Krippnerbeata.krippner@ispan.pl
Institute of Art, Polish Academy of Sciences Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8096-9708
Ph.D. in Humanities; film studies and media studies scholar. Assistant Professor at the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences (Warsaw). In 2011-2020, head of the Department of Cultural Anthropology, Film and Audiovisual Arts at the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Member of the editorial team of Kwartalnik Filmowy, in which in 1993-2003 she published, i.a. an annual chronicle of film events. Her scientific papers on the history and theory of film and television were published, among others, in Kwartalnik Filmowy and edited volumes. She collaborated with the quarterly Polish Culture (1997-2015). She was a member of the jury of the International Short Film Festival in Lublin (2013-2014) and a member of the expert committee at the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage (2012-2014). Member of the Polish Society for Film and Media Studies. Her research interests include the documentary film in the context of hybrid border genres (including mock-documentary and docusoap), the history and theory of film and television genres, as well as Austrian cinema.
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