Quick Facts
Biography
Michael Loebenstein (b. 1974 in Vienna) is a writer, curator and as of 1 October 2017 the director of the Austrian Film Museum (Österreichisches Filmmuseum). From October 2011 to January 2017 he held the post of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA). He is currently serving his second term as Secretary General of FIAF, the International Federation of Film Archives.
Previously he held senior positions at the Austrian Film Museum and at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute in its historical research cluster. He worked as an advisor to the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, Arts and Culture. He has also worked as a freelance curator and researcher in the field of audiovisual archiving and history, having particular interests in Documentary Film, Visual History and Holocaust Studies.
As a writer Michael has published books on filmmakers including Dziga Vertov, Alexander Hammid, James Benning and others. Notable publications include Film Curatorship: Archives, Museums and the Digital Marketplace (2008), Peter Tscherkassky (2007) and Gustav Deutsch (2009).
As a journalist, feature writer, commentator and editor he has contributed to numerous publications, books and articles on film history, curatorship and contemporary film culture. In addition he was a co-founder and editor of the influential film periodical kolik.film and a critic for the Viennese paper Falter.
He has been responsible for the production of several DVDs including the award-winning Entuziasm by Dziga Vertov (Edition Filmmuseum), and has collaborated with the celebrated film composer Michael Nyman.
As a curator he has been responsible for a number of large scale projects and exhibitions. In 2010 he curated the much-lauded Wien im Film at the Wien Museum in Vienna, a celebration of a century of images capturing the essence of the city. He also was instrumental in bringing the major City Project Film.Stadt.Wien to fruition.
He was until recently a member of the Advisory Board of the Centre for Media History at Macquarie University (Sydney) and the Wantok Music Foundation (Melbourne).