STUDIES

On Fairies and Gold Diggers: Robert Michel’s Attempts at Film Making

This is an article that was first presented at a lecture in Adalbert-Stifter-Verein in Munich on 14 February, 2007. It brings some novelties about Robert Michel’s (1876-1957) film making activities. Based on the research made in Viennese and German archives, the text gives some new information on Michel’s stays in Bosnia and Herzegovina and shootings of Der Schatzgräber von Blagaj and Die Vila der Narenta in the summer of 1918. Michael was a scriptwriter and a producer in these two films with the production assistance of the Viennese company Sascha Film. The text also presents conclusions on Michel’s orientalist fascination with Bosnia and Herzegovina which is evident both from his literary work and the ethnographic and documentary layer of his partially preserved film Der Schatzgräber von Blagaj.

Riccardo Concetti