Austrian Film Museum, Vienna

The Austrian Film Museum was founded in 1964 by independent filmmaker Peter Kubelka and film enthusiast Peter Konlechner as a non-profit organization. Its dual mission was to preserve films and present them as both the most important form of artistic expression in modernity and a chief historiographical source of the 20th century.

Within one year of its inception, the Austrian Film Museum became a member of the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF). This affiliation highlights its early establishment as a significant institution in film preservation.

After changing venues during its first 18 months, the Austrian Film Museum found its permanent location for film presentations and office space in Vienna's first district, within the Albertina building, in 1965.

In 2005, the Austrian government awarded the Austrian Film Museum the Honorary Prize at its annual Austrian Museum Awards. The jury recognized the museum as ranking among the best in the world in its field.

Alexander Horwath succeeded Peter Konlechner and Peter Kubelka as director on January 1, 2002, after their retirement. He maintained the museum's core goals while expanding programming, collection, and restoration activities.

In 2014, the Austrian Film Museum celebrated its 50th anniversary with 21 different projects that reflected on its history, collections, founders, and future.

In November 2016, Michael Loebenstein was appointed the new director of the Austrian Film Museum, succeeding Alexander Horwath. Loebenstein previously served as Chief Executive of the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.

The concept for an 'Invisible Cinema', designed to focus entirely on the film's image and sound, emerged from conversations between Peter Kubelka and architects around 1958, prior to the museum's founding.

Peter Kubelka realized his concept of the 'Invisible Cinema' in 1970 at the opening of the Anthology Film Archives in New York, a precursor to its later development at the Austrian Film Museum.

On the occasion of the Film Museum's 25th anniversary, the 'Invisible Cinema' was opened in 1989, designed as a black-in-black screening room focused on maximum concentration on the cinematic event.

In October 2003, 'Invisible Cinema 3' was realized at the museum, featuring significant renovations and expansions, including new seating and improved audio-visual capabilities, in consultation with Peter Kubelka.

Since its founding, the Film Museum has established specific collection areas, focusing on international and Austrian avant-garde film, Soviet revolutionary cinema, German-language film exile, contemporary history film documents, and amateur film.

The Film Museum was active in restoration since the early 1970s, undertaking major projects like the reconstruction of Dziga Vertov's 'Enthusiasm - The Donbass Symphony' (1930) by Peter Kubelka and Edith Schlemmer.

Since 2008, the Film Museum has incorporated digital restoration techniques alongside traditional photochemical methods for preserving its film collection.

The Film Museum's library, the largest in Austria, was housed in the Albertina building until 2018, when it moved to Hanuschgasse 3. The Amos Vogel Library was added and opened to the public in late 2019.

Since 1966, retrospectives organized by the Film Museum as part of the Viennale gave it a unique standing in German-speaking countries, contributing to its reputation and audience interest.

Acclaimed filmmaker Martin Scorsese, a supporter of film preservation, has served as the Honorary President of the Austrian Film Museum since 2005. He previously visited for a retrospective of his work in 1995.

Artist VALIE EXPORT was recognized as the first Honorary Member by the Film Museum's Board of Directors in the summer of 2021.

In 2003, a new book series called KINO was inaugurated jointly with Zsolnay-Verlag, featuring volumes on popular film genres and important film artists.

As a founding member of Edition Filmmuseum, the Austrian Film Museum has produced DVDs of rare films since 2005 in collaboration with other archives and cultural institutions.

Since 2012, the Film Museum has made parts of its film collection accessible online, including databases for the newsreel 'Österreich in Bild und Ton' and Dziga Vertov's 'Kinonedelja' and 'Kino-Pravda'.

The Film Museum has initiated and partnered in numerous research projects, such as 'Digital Formalism' (2007-2010) and 'Visual History of the Holocaust' (since 2019), collaborating with universities and institutions.

In 2005, the Austrian government awarded the Film Museum its Honorary Prize, recognizing it as one of the world's leading institutions in its field.