The Early Spring of Chinese Cinema 1922–1964 at Österreichisches Filmmuseum
- The file
- The practical details Claire checked before this went into the index.
- When
- 1 October 2026 – 22 October 2026
- Where
- Augustinerstraße 1 (Albertina building), 1010 Wien
- Price
- check website
- Silent and sound cinema
- Chinese cinema history
- 1922–1964
- Unsichtbares Kino
- 1st district
Chinese cinema and the nation's 20th-century modernization developed together. From 1896, when the Lumière brothers' first films arrived in Shanghai, through the 1911 Revolution, the Japanese occupation, and the Communist victory in 1949, filmmakers navigated political upheaval and colonial pressure through melodrama, comedy, and lyrical realism.
The Filmmuseum's autumn retrospective brings together thirteen films from the China Film Archive — a selection that reads as a visual history of Shanghai's vanguard culture. Early comedies gave way to the 1930s Golden Age of socially engaged melodramas. Ruan Lingyu's performance in The Goddess (1934) — as a Shanghai sex worker protecting her son — remains one of silent cinema's greatest. Fei Mu's Spring in a Small Town (1948) is widely considered the masterpiece of Chinese film history. Spring River Flows East (1947) drew larger audiences in China than Gone with the Wind.
After 1949, the Communist Party nationalized the industry, but Shanghai filmmakers found ways to work subtly within the new constraints. Xie Jin's Two Stage Sisters (1964) combines Hollywood classicism, Soviet realism, and local opera in a drama of female solidarity — one of the last films made before the Cultural Revolution shut down most filmmaking.
All screenings include piano accompaniment by Elaine Brennan on select dates.
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- When
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- Where
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- Where
- 1st · Innere Stadt
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- When
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- Where
- 6th · Mariahilf
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Read the note →