I just rented the “Red Violin” and am dying to know where the location is of that alpine “monastery & orphanage” (actually, it looks more like a fortress), supposedly in Austria. The large impressive building is of undressed grey stone built high on a steep alpine hill with at least one round tower, and it’s pretty old looking (I estimate 14th century but I could be way off) I’ve looked everywhere on the internet, and it’s yielded nothing. The credits mention Vienna, Austria, as a film location (no specifics) but this place is definitely nowhere near Vienna, because of the high alpine mountains in the immediate background. It looks like it’s deep in the alps somewhere.
Does anyone have any ideas how I could find out such a thing as specific movie locations? The castle/fortress/monastery looks distinctive enough that maybe it’s well known, and I’m posting on the off-chance someone here may have seen the film and recognize the location.
I have seen the movie, but not since it was in theaters.
I am assuming you were looking at the Internet Movie Data Base?
Under the heading of Filming Locations, Vienna is mentioned, but also Pizzighetone, Cremona, Lombardy. Isn’t Lombardy a mountainous area, with alps and also the Dolomites?
Anyway, I found an article (then promptly lost it) which seemed to indicate that many interiors were shot in Vienna, but not the outside monastery/orphanage scenes, and that paintings were used for one Vienna scene. I found a 15th century place called Palazzo Arzaga, but it did not exactly look like the correct location, still I’ll post a link, just in case. http://www.palazzoarzaga.com/index_ita.html
Sorry I couldn’t help more.
No, this castle/burg/fortress was definitely not Italian - think simple Gothic and Medieval, Germanic, not Italian. I looked at images again, and it’s a pretty large castle. It has several large towers, at least three. The shape and style of the castle are definitely germanic. It’s on top of a steep hill/foothill. The flora and geology looks alpine. (big fir trees, lush and green, foggy) From the landscape alone I’d say it’s not in Italy proper, or the Dolomites.
This place would be near Vienna before it would be anywhere near Cremona.
Thanks (still hoping someone will come along who has seen the place)
Maybe someone could give me a suggestion on how I can find out where this is.
Rusalka
When I was searching, I used IMBD and Googled a lot, looked through a couple movie location websites, but didn’t see Red Violin listed.
If you ever find out, could you please post?
This place is definitely in the north of Italy. This is actually a part of Italy where people are barely speaking Italian, most people are speaking German, and seeing and Austrian type castle there is not a surprise.
AKA Burg Taufers. The German Wikipedia article seems to say it was a location for the film. (The translation feature works about as well as my exceedingly rusty Deutsch.)
You seem to think the Middle Ages and Gothic architecture skipped Italy, or they never built castles. What’s an “Italian” castle vs a “Germanic” one? Do you mean a palazzo vs a castello? What’s this? or this? This?
Especially since it’s only been Italian since 1919, and was Austrian before that.
I saw The Red Violin when it was shown at a film festival. Someone who I was talking with just after the film was wondering how the violin got from where it was made to northern Europe. I talked with the director, and he mentioned something about the Gypsies bringing it across the mountains in northern Italy.
