johann strauss & die frauen. orf/arte.

October 24, 2025 nita artwork, broadcast, collage, motiondesign, music, styleboards

*johann strauss und die frauen / johann strauss : les femmes de sa vie. 2025 was the 200th anniversary year of johann strauss son. for this occasion i was commissioned by filmwerkstatt to work on animations for a documentary directed & produced by barbara weissenbeck. the project is highlighting the female characters & the roles of the women which are often fading in the background of the obvious story lines. this project had been literally an intense dance lesson inbetween forte & piano. inking the musical note feather & drawing blue danube wavy lines in timelines & keyframes – nevertheless it was a pleasure learning about the lifes of all this fantastic femmes. i enjoyed the research process & working on a beautiful topic like this. as a matter of fact some projects are more volatile when it comes to edit & dramaturgic decisions. some passages of strauss llife have not found there way in the final onair version, some animations have been shortened & edited. a reason to showcase the full length animations here. instead of leaving things mute & in silence in my digital & analogue archives there is a selection of stillframes & also some sneak peek on styleboards which never made it to the alchemy of animation. beside that there is also an extra entry focusing on the arbre génealogique / strauss carte de sa vie – a printed map of strauss sons stages of life. you can find it here. the orf & arte g.e.i.e. coproduction went on air on october 24th 2025 on orf II & was furthermore screened on arte, zdf & 3sat. merci to filmwerkstatt for the commission.

‘cherchez la femme.’
‘in flowers & females i trust.™’ ♥︎

johann strauss und die frauen. is a 2025 coproduction of orf & arte g.e.i.e. founded by fernsehfonds austria & lower austria – land of culture. the artworks & animation contain creative commons imagery & archival material provided & cleared by filmwerkstatt barbara weissenbeck (khm – museum association, austrian mediathek/technical museum vienna, austrian national library, pond5, roncalli archive, vienna museum & johann strauss flat vienna city hall library, vienna institute for straus research) for more information & the complete list of credits please watch the documentary available online in the stations media libraries.