Luise Fleck
director, producer, writer
- Birth name:
- Luise Veltée
- Born:
- 1873-08-01, Vienna, Austria-Hungary [now Austria]
- Died:
- 1950-03-15, Vienna, Austria
- Professions:
- director, producer, writer
Biography
The girl who entered Vienna’s Leopoldstadt quarter on 1 August 1873 grew into Europe’s first professional woman filmmaker. By 1912 Luise Kolm—already celebrated for her camera-ready storytelling—married studio pioneer Anton Kolm; four years later she wed Jacob Fleck after Anton’s death and together the Flecks steered Austria’s largest production house. Between 1915 and 1920 she signed the scripts and shooting schedules of Mit Herz und Hand fürs Vaterland, Mir kommt keiner aus and Eva, die Sünde, guiding actors through battlefields, drawing-room intrigues and biblical temptations while critics hailed her “invisible” yet unmistakable directorial touch. After more than three decades of coaxing emotion from celluloid, she closed her eyes for the final time in her native Vienna on 15 March 1950, leaving behind a trail of firsts no archive can erase.
