Austrian Film Museum - Augustinerstraße 1

Great movies, good people

Has its very own charme. Kind staff, wonderful experience, accessible pricing.

Great place to see older or less known movies

Best place to watch older movies in Europe

I've been to many film archives over the years, and this is certainly one of the best. Great retrospectives and events, sometimes with guests such as Paul Verhoeven, Olivier Assayas, Christian Petzold and Joe Dante. Usually, films are shown in their original language. The screening room is suitably austere. No popcorn or drinks allowed either, but there's a great little bar that has good beer and wine, and a handful of interesting local snacks.

Based on your experience as a young film organizer in the university's cinema studio at the Vienna University of Technology, Peter Konlechner (1936–2016) and filmmaker Peter Kubelka (born 1934) founded the Austrian Film Museum in February 1964. From the beginning, the association's lawyer was the lawyer Dr. Heinrich Wille (1938-2018). As early as 1965, the Fédération Internationale des Archives du Film (FIAF) - the worldwide organization of all major archives - accepted the Film Museum as a full member. The primary goal of the two founders was to establish a center in Austria for the consistent, high-quality presentation and preservation of international film history. They were inspired by the Cinémathèque Française, the National Film Archive in London and the film department of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Film should also be understood in Austria as the most important form of expression of modernity and the most important source of contemporary history in the 20th century. Right from the start, the focus was therefore on linking a wide range of activities - preservation, restoration, mediation, As "one of the most agile cinematheques in Europe" ( Der Spiegel ), the Filmmuseum made a prodigy with its programs. The extensive retrospectives of the 1960s and 70s had a special position in the German-speaking countries and were recognized across Europe. In 1984 the Filmmuseum organized the first FIAF Congress in Vienna. The programmatic priorities of the first decades included avant-garde film, the film comedians of the 1920s and 30s (e.g. the rediscovery of Mae West, WC Fields and the Marx Brothers), the Soviet revolutionary film, the classic American film genres, the topic of propaganda film or the masters of Japanese cinema. The Film Museum implemented many of these topics aggressively and increased interest in them at home and abroad. Since 1965, the retrospectives have been shown in the in-house cinema, which is located in the Albertina building, behind the Vienna State Opera. To mark the 25th anniversary of the house, the " Invisible Cinema"opened according to the concept of Peter Kubelka: a black-in-black screening room, a" viewing and hearing machine "that aims to concentrate as much as possible on the filmic event itself. Since November 2002 the Film Museum has been offering a completely and sound technology, which makes it possible to reproduce contemporary sound and video systems at the highest level in addition to all picture formats of film history.

Probably the most important cinema in Vienna. The Filmmuseum reviews certain topics each month, such as from a particular period, or by a particular director etc. For instance, January and February 2019 are dedicated to the Italian film makers Federico Fellini and Ermanno Olmi. Every December between Christmas and New Year they screen Marx Brothers movies. I don't think you can see them anywhere else in Europe. There are two performances every evening at 6:30pm and 8:30pm, Sundays usually an additional performance at 4pm.

The Austrian Film Museum is a cinematheque in Vienna founded in 1964 by Peter Konlechner and Peter Kubelka. It is located in the Albertina building complex not far from the Vienna Hofburg. The museum houses a large cinema hall, a specialist library and several collections, and it is active in the fields of education, research and exhibitions. The Film Museum has the legal form of an association. One third of its total annual budget is financed by the Republic of Austria, the City of Vienna ​and one third by its own income