Luise Kolm

Luise Fleck, also known as Luise Kolm or Luise Kolm-Fleck, née Louise or Luise Veltée (1 August 1873–15 March 1950), was an Austrian film director, and considered the second ever female feature film director in the world, after Alice Guy-Blaché. Her son, Walter Kolm-Veltée, was also a noted film director.

Luise was born in Vienna, the daughter of Louis Veltée, proprietor of the city panopticon, descended from a family originating in Lyon, who had settled in Austria in the early 19th century. Her brother was Claudius Veltée, also later known as a film director.

Even in her childhood she helped her father in his business by working on the till. In January 1910, she and her first husband, Anton Kolm, along with the cameraman Jacob Fleck and her brother Claudius, set up the Erste österreichische Kinofilms-Industrie, the earliest significant film production company in Austria, with financial support from a number of sources, including Luise's father. It was renamed the Österreichisch-Ungarische Kinoindustrie GmbH a year later, and at the end of 1911, after a major financial reconstruction, was renamed the Wiener Kunstfilm-Industrie.

The company's first productions were short documentary pieces made in Vienna and other parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Competition was tough, as the new company was up against the very large international French film companies that dominated the Austria market at the time.

The French companies were expelled from Austria at the beginning of World War I, but there was new competition in the form of the extremely wealthy Sascha-Film company, also Austrian. During the war the two companies struggled for dominance in the newsreel and propaganda markets, but the superior financial resources of Sascha-Film saw them firmly in the leading position by 1918, and carried them through the economic and political collapse of Austria immediately following the end of the war. Wiener Kunstfilm was obliged to dissolve, but Anton Kolm was able to re-structure its finances and relaunch the company as Vita-Film in 1919.

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