Mozartkino

Snapshot

The smaller of Mozartkino’s two screening rooms contains a wall of ancient Roman masonry. The Römersaal, named for what workers found when they renovated in 1987, shows films against preserved stonework from a 2nd-century temple of Asclepius. It is also one of the oldest continuously operating cinema sites in Austria.

The Story

In December 1905, a showman named Georg Barth set up a kinematograph inside the Kasererbräu guesthouse on Kaigasse 33 and ran moving pictures for 13 consecutive days. It was the first public film screening in Salzburg. A permanent cinema followed in 1907. The building was bombed in 1945, largely destroyed, and reopened on 23 December 1950, a date chosen with an eye on continuity. It has not closed since.

What the 1987 renovation exposed changed the character of the smaller hall permanently. Workers tearing down old plaster found stone blocks from a Roman temple dedicated to Asclepius, the god of healing, built around 200 AD. The masonry was preserved in situ, protected by a legal order, and the screening room was built around it. The Römersaal holds 136 seats and the Roman wall is visible beside the screen. The larger Grosser Saal holds 263 seats and contains medieval timber beams from 1342.

The celebrity history is woven into the foyer. Romy Schneider attended the Sissi trilogy premieres here in the mid-1950s. Queen Friederike of Spain came for the premiere of Traumland der Sehnsucht in 1957. Their photographs still hang in the lobby. The 1950s programme changed nightly, drawing artists, writers, and diplomats as well as regular audiences. That rhythm continues: the programme rotates frequently, leans heavily on European art house, and runs original-language screenings with subtitles throughout the year.

During the Salzburg Festival, Mozartkino screens opera productions and film retrospectives that connect the cinema world to the concert season. For any visitor who has been immersed in Salzburg’s baroque cultural machinery, the cinema offers something different: a dark room, an intimate scale, and a Roman wall that predates everything else in the neighbourhood by 1,700 years.

Visiting

Mozartkino is at Kaigasse 33 in the Altstadt, inside the Altstadthotel Kasererbräu. Enter through the hotel lobby or via the barrier-free side entrance on Krotachgasse. Wheelchair spaces are available. Screenings run afternoon and evening; check mozartkino.at for the current programme. Tickets are approximately EUR 7-10. No booking required for most screenings, though popular Festival-season screenings may sell out. Combine with Kaigasse and Alter Markt on the same walk.