Funding Source: Botstiber Institute for Austrian-American Studies and Internal Wellesley College – My project focuses on the films made in Austria between 1933 and 1937 by a few independent studios who produced films by and with the largely Jewish exiles from Hitler’s Germany. I trace the ways in which many of these attempt to come to terms with the trauma of exile, considering how the common language and close ties between Germany and Austria allowed filmmakers some level of continuity with their previous work, while pressures from Germany simultaneously meant that even these independent studios had to tightly control the content of these productions. These Austrian exile films represent an especially interesting body of work, both because they are tied most clearly to filmmakers’, actors’, and crews’ previous work and because they manage to subtly reflect on the experience of exile and the transitional period immediately after Hitler’s rise to power.