26 June 2019

From the history of the countdown to the Apollo missions: Open-air cinema 'Kino wie noch nie' (27 Jun - 25 Aug) at Augarten in Vienna pays tribute to 50 Years Moon Landing

Tomorrow on 27 June, the annual 'Kino wie noch nie' (translated 'Cinema like never before') film screenings will start at the open-air cinema at the garden of Filmarchiv Austria at Augarten in Vienna. The program for 60 evenings (until 25 August) is a mix of restored old films, brand new movie releases and even premieres to very popular classics for the whole family as well as documentaries or art productions for cineastes. This year, 'Kino wie noch nie' pays with a selection of six movies homage to 50 Years Moon Landing beginning with the screening of the Hollywood docudrama 'Apollo 13', directed by Ron Howard, with Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon about the aborted lunar landing caused by an exploded oxygen tank in 1970. The open-air cinema's tribute ends with the 1929 silent film classic 'Frau im Mond' ('Woman in the Moon') directed by Fritz Lang, written by his wife Thea von Harbou and advised by scientist Hermann Oberth whose ground-breaking studies became the basis for rocket engineers like Wernher von Braun. Fritz Lang's countdown for the start sequence of the rocket in the 1920s science-fiction film was used later for rocket launches in general such as for the one which brought humans for the first time to the moon in 1969. The premiere of 'Woman in the Moon' in Berlin was attended by guests such as Albert Einstein. 

fig.: Austrian actress Gerda Maurus in the silent movie 'Frau im Mond' ('Woman in the Moon') from 1929; directed by Fritz Lang. Details at kinowienochnie.at/filmprogramm/film/frau-im-mond/.

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