toni sailer & kaiserpanorama

[Roland Domenig]

a few recommendations for those in or near vienna:

the austrian filmarchive currently presents the retrospective "projected
country - images of austria in international cinema". on december 18 and 22
it will show the film GINREI NO OJA/KOENIG DER SILBERNEN BERGE (1960)
directed by bansho yoshiaki. it is the only film the famous austrian
ski-racer and olympia-medalist toni sailer made in japan. toni sailer was
very popular in japan in the late 1950s ond 1960s. Even today he is
well-known in japan - several ski-areas are named after him and he runs
several ski-schools that earn him a lot of money. the film certainly is not
a great masterpiece but a funny little curiosity that is rarely shown.

the austrian filmarchive also displays a reconstruction of the
kaiserpanorama. the kaiserpanorama was one of the most popular forms of
visual entertainment at the end of the 19 century and a key-competitor with
the early cinema. the peeping device displayed a set of stereo-photographs
that rotated automatically before the eyes of the spectator. contemporaries
such as franz kafka appreciated the kaiserpanorama higher than the early
films. august fuhrmann, the inventor of the kaiserpanorama, maintained a
world-wide net of contributors and supplied new sets of pictures on a weekly
base. the kaiserpanorama thus played an important role as information media
as well.
from december 27 to january 2 the filmarchive will present a series of 50
pictures from japan and east asian.

http://www.filmarchiv.at/index_ev3.htm


roland domenig
vienna university