ORF-E
1 x 45 min
German
Worldwide

Louise Fleck wrote screenplays as well being a director and producer. What’s so special about that? She was doing all this back in 1910. Her fascinating biography is closely interwoven with European history and the development of cinema. The search for clues leads the viewer to original settings, archives and movie theaters, and is supplemented by excerpts from her films. What results is a portrait that tells the story of an extraordinary woman and a forgotten pioneer of cinema. As the daughter of a Viennese cinematographer, Louise Fleck fell under the spell of cinema while still a child. From this love of film grew an extraordinary career, as the creative allrounder asserted herself in a business still dominated by men. Together with her husbands Anton Kolm and later Jakob Fleck, she founded her own company, produced countless films, and left her mark not only on Austrian cinema history – Louise Fleck is also considered one of the world’s first female directors. After the rise of National Socialism, she fled to exile in Shanghai in 1938 with her Jewish husband Jakob Fleck. Once the war ended, she returned to Vienna, but any comeback eluded her. Louise Fleck died in Vienna in 1950 – as a forgotten pioneer of film history.