Rosenhügel Studios

File:Rosenhuegel Filmstudios Halle1.jpg

The studios in 2007.

The Rosenhügel Studios are film studios located in the Austrian capital Vienna. They were opened in 1923 and originally owned by the Vita-Film production company. After the company's bankruptcy the following year the studios were taken over by Sascha Film, the largest of the Austrian companies of the era. In the early 1930s Sascha formed a partnership with the German outfit Tobis Film to renovate the studios for production of sound films. A number of Austrian hit films were produced there during the remainder of the decade.

Following the Anschluss of 1938, the Austrian film industry was incorporated into that of Nazi Germany. Rosenhügel was taken over by the German-controlled Wien-Film under Karl Hartl.

During the Soviet Occupation of East Vienna between 1945 and 1955, the studios were used for a mixture of entertainment films and Communist propaganda works. After the Soviet withdrawal the studios passed into the hands of democratic Austria, and it functioned as the country's largest studios.

At the beginning of October 2008, the ORF confirmed rumors that the sale of the Rosen Hügel studios was planned. The minimum purchase price should be 14 million euros. Filmstadt Wien-GmbH wants to move to the newly built Media Quarter Marx after the lease expires, which was extended from 2009 to 2014 by exercising an option.

In 2011 parts of the studio estate were sold off for demolition and redevelopment.

Rosenhügel films produced under Soviet occupation

• Child of the Danube (dir. Georg Jacoby, 1950)
• Spring on Ice (dir. Georg Jacoby, 1951)
• Das Herz einer Frau (dir. Georg Jacoby, 1951)
• Verlorene Melodie (dir. Eduard von Borsody, 1952)
• Abenteuer im Schloss (dir. Rudolf Steinboeck, 1952)
• Seesterne (dir. Johann Alexander Hübler-Kahla, 1952)
• Daughter of the Regiment (dir. Georg C. Klaren, 1953)
• A Night in Venice (dir. Georg Wildhagen, 1953)
• Franz Schubert (dir. Walter Kolm-Veltée, 1953)
• Schicksal am Lenkrad (dir. Aldo Vergano, 1954)
• Der Komödiant von Wien (dir. Karl Paryla, 1954)
• Bel Ami (dir. Louis Daquin, 1955)
• Don Juan (dir. Walter Kolm-Veltée, 1955)
• Gasparone (dir. Karl Paryla, 1956)
• Fidelio (dir. Walter Felsenstein, 1956)
• Herr Puntila and His Servant Matti (dir. Alberto Cavalcanti, 1960)

Bibliography

• Fritsche, Maria. Homemade Men in Postwar Austrian Cinema: Nationhood, Genre and Masculinity. Berghahn Books, 2013.
• Von Dassanowsky, Robert. Austrian Cinema: A History. McFarland, 2005.