cineMAKK - Film screenings in our museum

Thursday, 2.1.2025, 7 p.m.

The Great Museum

Austria 2014 - 94 min. · Director: Johannes Holzhausen

Director Johannes Holzhausen ventures a mischievously humorous look behind the scenes of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. His film shows routine hand movements, but above all lively micro-dramas in which the workers emerge as protagonists: A restorer is on the trail of the history of a Rubens painting that has been worked on several times; another expressively despairs over the repair of a model battleship. A woman from public services does not feel integrated at the museum; a deserving head of the collection is retiring.

The result is not only a portrait of a state cultural institution that has to balance its integrity with budget constraints and competitive pressure. DAS GROSSE MUSEUM also poses far-reaching questions: How can the preservation of the works and their contemporary presentation be reconciled? What purposes does art have to fulfill for the self-representation of a nation in politics and tourism?

Thursday, 6.2.2025, 7 p.m.

The girl with the pearl earring

2004 - 100 min. · Director: Peter Webber

Delft in 1665, the golden age of Dutch painting: 17-year-old Griet (Scarlett Johansson) has taken a job as a maid in the noble Vermeer household and has to keep Jan Vermeer's (Colin Firth) studio clean. Griet is fascinated by the works of the secretive artist, who over time builds up a special relationship with her and lets her in on the secrets of his art. When she is finally even allowed to make the precious paints, the lady of the house is more than displeased. What's more, Vermeer's lecherous patron (Tom Wilkinson) has his eye on the young woman...

Thursday, 6.3.2025, 7 p.m.

Life is also an art - The case of Max Emden

2019 - 90 min. · Director: André Schäfer, Eva Gerberding

Hardly anyone knows the name Max Emden today, although most Germans have certainly visited one of his department stores. Born in Hamburg in 1874, the patron once donated the first golf club and a polo club to his hometown, but is also known for his extensive art collection and not least as the king of department stores, whose luxury stores are still true institutions today - from KaDeWe in Berlin to Oberpollinger in Munich and department stores in Stockholm and Budapest. However, due to the rise of anti-Semitism, Emden moved his residence to Switzerland in 1928 and also acquired the Brissago Islands in Lake Maggiore before his assets were gradually confiscated by the National Socialists. Together with his grandson Juan Carlos Emden, directors André Schäfer and Eva Gerberding set out on the trail of Max Emden, who died in 1940, to investigate one question in particular: What really happened to the former department store king's famous art collection and real estate holdings?