[ Veranstaltungen - Conferences ]

AUSTRIAN CULTURAL FORUM London & SYNEMA Vienna presents:

RETURN & RE-MIGRATION?
A season highlighting some of the Austrian artists who have contributed to the British and US film industries.

25th November – 27th November 2005

Riversidestudios / Hammersmith
With the annexation ("Anschluss") imposed on Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938 and its dire consequences, a great number of Austrian artists were forced to emigrate within a few months. Together with them, German artists who had fled their country after seizure of power by the
National Socialists in 1933, to find safety in Austria, were driven into yet another exile.

Many found refuge in Great Britain. In London, in particular Hampstead and Swiss Cottage, where rents were affordable, became centres for a
German-speaking community of about 25.000, accounting for more than a third of residents in the area. Legend has it that in the 1940s even bus
stops were announced in the German language.

This 3-days’-Special of screenings and introductory lectures will focus on some of the film artists who had to flee Austria, and got the chance to work in the British film industry: such as Elisabeth Bergner, Paul Czinner, Adolf Wohlbrück, Oscar Homolka, Peter Lorre, Francis Lederer, and will document the very painful effects that exile often had on both their private and professional lives.

The story of emigration did not end when the war was over in 1945. Although many emigrants had successfully settled in Great Britain,
become UK-citizens, and made an enlightened impact on the cultural life, exile had irrevocably changed the perspectives of the exiled. For those who returned there was no taking up where they had left off, nor was
there yet a fresh start for the European post-war-cinema.

Source: Synema

Curated by Fritz Urschitz, Brigitte Mayr & Michael Omasta


Friday 25 November

7.15pm - THE FACE BEHIND THE MASK (USA 1941) DIRECTED BY: Robert Florey. SCREENPLAY: Allen Vincent, Paul Jarrico. CINEMATOGRAPHY BY: Franz Planer (E). CAST: Peter Lorre (E), Evelyn
Keyes, Don Beddoe, John Tyrell.

János (Lorre), a Hungarian émigré watchmaker, dreams of earning enough money to bring his beloved wife to the US. His dreams are shattered when a terrible fire disfigures his face. He loses his identity and work. Only the underworld welcomes him and his crafted hands.


8.55pm - DER VERLORENE (The Lost One) (GERMANY 1951) DIRECTED BY: Peter Lorre (E). SCREENPLAY: Peter Lorre, Axel Eggebrecht,
Benno Vigny, Egon Jameson (E). PRODUCER: Arnold Pressburger (E). CAST: Peter Lorre, Karl John, Johanna Hofer (E). SUBTITLES.

Peter Lorre’s only directorial work is simply a masterpiece. On first release its difficult subject of unforgivable guilt caused it to be a financial failure. General audiences preferred stories offering "escapism" and weren’t ready to deal with the recent past. Der Verlorene is undoubtedly one of the most important films of post-war West Germany.


Saturday 26 November

7.15pm - JEALOUSY (USA 1945) DIRECTED AND PRODUCED BY: Gustav Machaty (E). SCREENPLAY: Arnold Phillips, Gustav Machaty, Dalton Trumbo. MUSIC: Hanns Eisler (E), Rudolf Friml (E). CAST: John Loder, Jane Randolph, Karen Morley, Nils Asther (E), Hugo Haas (E).

Machaty’s second and last film during his Hollywood exile is an unrecognized masterpiece. Murder, desperation and an unexpected happy-ending amaze in this film noir, critics like to call Machaty’s American "ecstasy".


8.50pm - STOLEN IDENTITY (AUSTRIA/USA 1952)
DIRECTED BY: Emile E. Reinert, Gunther von Fritsch (E). SCREENPLAY: Robert Thoeren (E). PRODUCER: Turhan Bey (E). CAST: Donald Buka, Joan
Camden, Francis Lederer (E), Adrienne Gessner (E), Egon von Jordan (E), Manfred Inger (E), Fritz Eckhardt (E), Karl Farkas (E).

We follow a famous pianist, his young wife and a stateless cab driver on their journey through post-war Vienna, hometown of the "The Third Man". Stolen Identity is the story of a ruined town and a ruined marriage.


Sunday 27 November

3.00pm - ESCAPE ME NEVER (UK 1934) DIRECTED BY: Paul Czinner (E). SCREENPLAY: Robert J. Cullen, Carl Zuckmayer (E), Margaret Kennedy. EDITED BY: David Lean. CINEMATOGRAPHY: Georges Périnal, Sepp Allgeier. COSTUMES: Joe Strassner (E). CAST: Elisabeth Bergner (E), Hugh Sinclair, Griffith Jones.

The mother of an illegitimate child has to marry a man who loves someone else. Elisabeth Bergner was nominated for an Oscar for her starring performance in this film directed by her husband Paul Czinner.


5.00pm - SABOTAGE (UK 1936) DIRECTED BY: Alfred Hitchcock. SCREENPLAY: Charles Bennett. ART
DIRECTION: O. F. Werndorff (E). CAST: Sylvia Sidney, Oscar Homolka (E), John Loder.

The proprietor (Austrian émigré Oscar Homolka) of a small London cinema turns out to be a dangerous foreign agent.


7.00pm - THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP (UK 1943) DIRECTED, WRITTEN AND PRODUCED BY: Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger (E) / The Archers. CINEMATOGRAPHY: Georges Périnal, Jack Cardiff. PRODUCTION DESIGN: Alfred Junge (E). CAST: Anton Walbrook (E), Roger Livesey, Deborah Kerr, Roland Culver, Albert Lieven (E).

A soldier survives three wars and falls in love with three women. Anton Wohlbruck stars as Blimp’s friend and the sympathetic German.


RIVERSIDESTUDIOS
Crisp Road, Hammersmith
London W6 9RL

AUSTRIAN CULTURAL FORUM, London
SYNEMA - Society for Film and Media, Vienna