Flotsam:
Films from the Collection of the Communist Party of Austria
May 22, 2022
In autumn 2018, the film collection of the Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ) was donated to the Austrian Film Museum's archive. The extensive deposit brings together documentary and feature films from socialist countries that show the KPÖ's close relations to East Germany and the Soviet Union as well as election campaign ads and documentary footage of social events in Austria – including the 1959 World Festival of Youth and Students in Vienna, the yearly Volksstimme festival, and 1980s peace movement demonstrations.
"We are not showing you an ad for paprika, but a spicy comparison for your consideration" begins one 1962 KPÖ campaign ad. The Film Museum will not show you any political campaigns, but a selection of documents on film, which fragmentarily retrace how Austrian communists created their own image and will once again provide a visual reality to ideas about piece, friendship, and international understanding in the heart of Vienna. (Florian Haag / Translation: Ted Fendt)
Our guests are historian and film scholar Hanja Dämon and historian Manfred Mugrauer. Hanja Dämon published previously undiscovered documents on the Nazi past of Austrian filmmaker Franz Antel in 2021, and Manfred Mugrauer is a research associate at the Documentation Center of Austrian Resistance (DÖW) and author of the monograph Die Politik der KPÖ 1945-1955, published in 2020. On behalf of the KPÖ, Mugrauer accompanied the donation to the Austrian Film Museum. He helped facilitate the KPÖ's donation to the Austrian Film Museum.
Our program series Flotsam is devoted to examples of ephemeral film: archive finds, film documents, unpublished and fragmented film material that have become a subject of research and curatorial attention in the Film Museum.
In autumn 2018, the film collection of the Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ) was donated to the Austrian Film Museum's archive. The extensive deposit brings together documentary and feature films from socialist countries that show the KPÖ's close relations to East Germany and the Soviet Union as well as election campaign ads and documentary footage of social events in Austria – including the 1959 World Festival of Youth and Students in Vienna, the yearly Volksstimme festival, and 1980s peace movement demonstrations.
"We are not showing you an ad for paprika, but a spicy comparison for your consideration" begins one 1962 KPÖ campaign ad. The Film Museum will not show you any political campaigns, but a selection of documents on film, which fragmentarily retrace how Austrian communists created their own image and will once again provide a visual reality to ideas about piece, friendship, and international understanding in the heart of Vienna. (Florian Haag / Translation: Ted Fendt)
Our guests are historian and film scholar Hanja Dämon and historian Manfred Mugrauer. Hanja Dämon published previously undiscovered documents on the Nazi past of Austrian filmmaker Franz Antel in 2021, and Manfred Mugrauer is a research associate at the Documentation Center of Austrian Resistance (DÖW) and author of the monograph Die Politik der KPÖ 1945-1955, published in 2020. On behalf of the KPÖ, Mugrauer accompanied the donation to the Austrian Film Museum. He helped facilitate the KPÖ's donation to the Austrian Film Museum.
Our program series Flotsam is devoted to examples of ephemeral film: archive finds, film documents, unpublished and fragmented film material that have become a subject of research and curatorial attention in the Film Museum.
This event was originally scheduled to take place on May 3, 2022, but was postponed due to Corona.
Related materials
Photos 2022 - Treibgut: KPÖ
