The following article is taken from the Journal of Film Preservation, December 1998
(C) The International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF)
Saturn: The erotic beginnings of Austrian cinematography
Michael Achenbach and Paolo Caneppele
Asked about early Austrian cinema most film historians will mention Von
Stufe zu Stufe or Der Müller und sein Kind, movies filmed between 1908
and 1911. Not many people know that before them, in 1907, a Viennese
studio called Saturn started mass production of feature films.
Unfortunately, because of the Saturn-films’ peculiar topics, up until now
certain reluctance combined with a large amount of bashfulness caused a
distortion in the historical reconstruction of Austrian filmography. The
chronology of the real events was falsified and important sources of the
birth of Austrian cinematography were kept as a secret. Filmarchiv
Austria decided to set the record straight and fill the gap by publishing a
book and a videocassette. The book addresses movie-specialists, while
the cassette will be suitable for a general audience interested in the his-
tory of Austrian movie production.
