Cinema operator Erwin Kerschbaumer grew up in the cinema – and was even born in the cinema. “Right there behind the window, one floor above the cinema foyer,” he says. When his father Fritz Kerschbaumer came home from the Second World War as an invalid – with only one hand – he had a plan. He wanted to open a cinema in Krumbach. The hall of a former labor camp, on the spot where the Krumbach outdoor swimming pool is now located, became the first cinema hall.
In 1952 Fritz Kerschbaumer began to build his own building, and in 1953 the Krumbach cinema was opened. “Back then we only had a film projector,” says son Erwin. That’s why the audience had to wait until the projectionist changed the individual film rolls in the projection booth. At the time, however, no one was bothered by waiting.
Because the cinema was booming, like the more than 300 other cinemas that existed in Lower Austria at the time. For people in the post-war period, going to the cinema was a time out, something that made them forget their hard everyday life and immerse them in another world. In 1971, Fritz Kerschbaumer even took over a second cinema, the cinema in Aspang am Wechsel (Neunkirchen district).
Travel into the past
In 1985, however, the golden age was over, television and video stores were too big competitors, and the cinema in Krumbach had to close due to a lack of visitors. Erwin Kerschbaumer became a tobacconist. He also looked after and cared for the cinema in which he grew up and where he was employed for several years for four decades – like his living room, he says.
And so visitors to the cinema in Krumbach can experience pure nostalgia today, more than 70 years after the cinema first opened. Anyone who sits down on the decades-old cinema seats, which look like new, will immediately be transported back in time.
185 visitors can sit in the cinema hall. There are two film projectors from 1927 in the projection room; they still work with coal and arcs. A challenge for projectionists like Gerhard Laserer: “You have to be skilled and technically experienced,” he says, so that everything works as it should and the audience is satisfied with the screening.
Historical films in historical cinemas
Most recently, films from the region were on the program in the historic cinema. For example, the Austrian science fiction classic “April 1, 2000”, which was filmed in 1953 – the same year that the Krumbach cinema opened – was shown. The content: In the year 2000, Austria is still occupied by the Allies and is trying to finally become free.
With Austrian charm, wit and a little luck, this will work and so the UFOs in front of Schönbrunn Palace can also start in the cinema in Krumbach and a classic film can be brought to life. The film was of course projected using projectors that are almost 100 years old – a beautiful old analog world.
