AUSTRIAN FILM COMMISSION - NEWS

Sudabeh Mortezai’s JOY
to the Lido

The Venice Festival's Giornate degli Autori section will host the world premiere of Sudabeh Mortezai's much-anticipated new film JOY – the story of a young woman from Nigeria caught in the vicious cycle of human trafficking and sexual exploitation.

CHAOS wins Pardo d'oro Cineasti del Presente

„A film about feelings, not about fact“, that’s what Syrian born filmmaker Sara Fattahi wanted to convey by her second feature film CHAOS that takes us deep into the inner devastations which the war has inflicted upon her female protago-
nists. Forceful voices of the present that the Locarno Cineasti de Presente-jury honored with a Pardo d’oro.

Austrian films at international festivals

Participations June - August 2018

Austrian films on international screens

Theatrical releases
October 2016 – July 2018

«The fate of these people involves us all.»

Sudabeh Mortezai

When Nigerian sex workers in Europe manage to pay off their debts and buy their freedom, most of them have one overriding aim: to switch to the side of the pimps. A vicious system of winners and losers features women on both sides. In her second feature film, JOY, Sudabeh Mortezai depicts a relentless cycle where the only real aim is to survive, where morality and solidarity are luxuries that nobody in a system like this can possibly afford.

«A mother and a friend – metaphors for Damascus»

In her second full-length film CHAOS Syrian filmmaker Sara Fattahi, who lives in Vienna, delves deep into the inner devastation which the war has inflicted upon her protagonists. CHAOS is a contender at the Locarno Cineasti des Presente competition. Read more in an interview with the director.
World Premiere on August 9

World premiere of ANGELO at Toronto Platform

Markus Schleinzer’s highly anticipated second feature film ANGELO is hosted for its world premiere at the Toronto platform competition. African-born Angelo Soliman (1721-96) and the fragments of his biography led the filmmaker into the Vienna of the Enlightenment and an examination of the longing for freedom, home and belonging.

71^stLocarno festival presents CHAOS by Sara Fattahi
Tizza Covi member of the Pardo-jury

Locarno’s Cineasti del presente hosts the Vienna based Syrian filmmaker Sara Fattahi with her second feature documentary CHAOS. Tizza Covi will be one of the five jury members to select the winner of the Pardo d’oro 2018.

ANGELO vies for Golden Shell at San Sebastián

The San Sebastián festival has unveiled the first titles to enter its 66^th main competition: ANGELO, Markus Schleinzer’s eagerly awaited second feature film, will contend for the Concha de Oro 2018 together with Claire Denis, Naomi Kawase, Simon Jaquemet, Kim Jee-Woon ...

«An extreme, excessive and ecstatic exploration of feeling.»

In his first English-language film TO THE NIGHT, Peter Brunner explores the inner world of somebody who is trapped in his suffering, condemned to extinguish the constant flaring up of his own destructive powers.

Special Mention to WELCOME TO SODOM at Filmfest Munich

Christian Krönes’ and Florian Weigensamer’s alarming documentary WELCOME TO SODOM about one if the most poisonous waste dumps on the planet returns from the Filmfest Munich with a Special Mention from the One Future Prize-jury.

«Today he’d be a must-have accessory.»

Markus Schleinzer

Markus Schleinzer, Palme d’or contender in 2011 with his directorial debut Michael, has finished shooting his second feature Angelo. A film about Angelo Soliman (1721–1796), who, abducted from Africa as a small boy, made his way into Viennese society. An enigmatic biography that inspired the filmmaker to shed some light on the idea of home and identity from a historical point of view.

«If an event is never described, it's as though it never took place.»

Christian Frosch

Until recently the name Franz Murer did not feature in Austria's collective awareness of history. The SS officer was instrumental in destroying the Jewish ghetto in Vilnius, and in 1955 he was returned to Austria from a Russian prison to be tried for his crimes. He wasn’t put to trial until eight years later. MURER – ANATOMY OF A TRIAL Christian Frosch has reappraised an outrageous case of post-war jurisdiction in Austria.

Underground Spirit Award to Tizza Covi & Rainer Frimmel

The Palic European Film Festival has announced Tizza Covi & Rainer Frimmel as the laureats of the 2018 UNDERGROUND SPIRIT AWARD assigned for exceptional work in the field of independent cinema.

Valencia Cinema Jove honors L'ANIMALE

Katharina Mückstein's second feature film L'ANIMALE wins the Prix CIMA at the Valencia Cinema Jove festival.

«What does being grown-up really mean?»

For his debut feature film Gregor Schmidinger has created a Nevrland between being a child and being grown-up, between reality and fantasy, between the genuine and the staged self. He sends his protagonists Jakob and Kristjan, offspring of Generation Y, into this world on a terrifying journey from the surface to their individual depths. A conversation with Gregor Schmidinger (director) and Ulrich Gehmacher (producer).

Peter Brunner returns to Crystal Globe Competition

The 53^rd Karlovy Vary FF (June 29 to July 7) has unveiled its official program.
Peter Brunner, winner of the Special Jury prize 2015, returns to the Crystal Globe Competition with TO THE NIGHT, his third feature length film and first drama filmed in English, that will celebrate its world premiere in the Czech spa town.

SAND AND BLOOD Best documentary at Espinho

Matthias Krepp’s and Angelika Spangel’s directorial debut SAND AND BLOOD was selected Best feature-length documentary at the Espinho Fest – New Directors | New Films Festival

La Valetta awards STYX and WELCOME TO SODOM

Wolfgang Fischer’s STYX garners two awards at La Valetta Film Festival, including the prize for Best Performance to Susanne Wolff and Best Cinematography to Benedict Neuenfels. The Best Cinematography award of the documentary competition went to Christian Kermer, DOP of WELCOME TO SODOM.

THE GREEN LIE awarded at Cinemambiente

“The film shows us how to be citizens and not consumers and reminds us that to effect change we must fight the battle together”, stated the jury honoring Werner Boote’s THE GREEN LIE with the Arcobaleno Social Cooperative Environment and Society Award of the Turin Cinemambiente festival.

«The central thread running through Justin's stories is abuse.»

A semester spent at Columbia University, where Justin P. Lange was studying directing and Florian Krügel film production, lay the foundation for their creative friendship and their joint feature film debut THE DARK. With the calm, carefully-composed camerawork of Klemens Hufnagl, the film treads the path least taken between the genres as it combines suspense and empathy, zombie-horror and drama.

Fipresci Prize to LIFE GUIDANCE

LIFE GUIDANCE by Ruth Mader, screened at the Cluj Napoca Transilvanian Film Festival
wins the Fipresci Prize, offered by the International Federation of Film Critics for a title in the section To Be or Not to Be Politically Correct?

Best Screenplay award to THE DARK

Justin P. Lange's THE DARK, co-directed and photographed by Klemens Hufnagl wa s awarded for Best Screenplay at the Fantaspoa Fantastic Film Festival at Porto Alegre.

«We wanted a certain subversive feel.»

When Julia and her friends head to a Croatian party island to celebrate graduating from high school and enjoy life for one carefree summer, Dominik Hartl confronts them with a brutal avenger in the teen slasher movie PARTY HARD, DIE YOUNG, putting a grim and dramatic end to their happy-go-lucky antics.

L’ANIMALE at Sydney’s Europe! Voices of Women in Film

It’s becoming a tradition that the Sydney Film Festival in cooperation with EFP and Screen International as a media partner showcases ten remarkable films of European female directors. Katharina Mückstein’s L’ANIMALE and the German-French-Austrian co-production 3 Days in Quiberon by Emily Atef are to be discovered on the Sydney screens.

Two awards at the Munich DOKfest

I’M A BAD GUY by Susanne Freund is the winner of the VIKTOR DOK.deutsch, for the best German-language documentary. A film, as the jury stated, „that allows us to look into an abyss that could be our own“. The highly topical SAND AND BLOOD by Matthias Krepp & Angelika Spangel bagged the Megaherz Student Award.

THE WALDHEIM WALTZ wins at Play Doc

Ruth Beckermann’s Berlinale winner THE WALDHEIM WALTZ took the main award together with Pablo Sigg’s Lamaland (part I). at the 14^th PLAY DOC festival where both films had celebrated their Spanish premiere. The film sets the Waldheim affair in a bigger international political context, yet 30 years on, it is dauntingly timely”, stated the jury.

Docu/Life Award for SAND AND BLOOD

„Great cinema is able to unfold the hidden aspects of human life, by projecting light where there are shadows,“ stated the jury at the KIEV Human Rights Documentary Film Festival where SAND AND BLOOD by Matthias Krepp and Angelika Spangel stood out in the Docu/Life competition.

CPH:DOX with Austrians vying for Dox: and F:act Award

The 16^th CPH:DOX screens two Austrian films in their prestigious competition programs: the thought-provoking WELCOME TO SODOM by C. Krönes and F. Weigensamer celebrates its world premiere in the DOX:AWARD main competition. F. Ofner’s and E. Hausberger’s WEAPON OF CHOICE, a gloomy success story of a pistol made in Austria, is selected for F:ACT Award.

THE WALDHEIM WALTZ at Cinéma du réel

Ruth Beckermann’s Berlinale Best Documentary winner WALDHEIM’S WALTZ is part of the international competition of the 40^th Cinema du Réel. Only two years ago, Ruth Beckermann was awarded the Prix de la Scam and a special mention at the Young Award for her previous opus The Dreamed Ones at the Paris based festival.

«In order to understand this non-place, you have to look deeper.»

One of the most poisonous scrapyards on the planet can be found in the middle of Ghana’s capital. Electronic scrap is brought here by the container-load, and the people who recycle it earn a pitiful living, while the air is polluted, the water is poisoned, and the city has been brought to the verge of ecological collapse. In the middle of the garbage, filth and chaos of Agbogbloshie, Christian Krönes and Florian Weigensamer expose a microcosm and the orderly system which governs it in WELCOME TO SODOM, sending an alarming signal to Western consumers.

«There are far more heroes than people think.»

Fernando Romero-Forsthuber

NAMRUD – TROUBLEMAKER is the title Fernando Romero-Forsthuber has chosen for his portrait of Jowan Safadi. And this is not just a reference to the artist’s first solo album. In fact, the Palestinian musician from Haifa is a provocative and multilingual thinker, relentless and unerring in exploring areas of conflict in his society.

«A film about the Glock and not against the Glock.»

Fritz Ofner, Eva Hausberger

Whether on the right or the wrong side of the law, in military conflicts or for personal defense, the fame of the Glock pistol knows no bounds. On the American private firearms market it registers over a million sales each year, while in the music scene there it is rare to see a brand name used so often as a synonym for the object in question. But in Austria itself people know little about the international success story of this weapon made in Austria. Now Fritz Ofner and Eva Hausberger plan to change that with the documentary WEAPON OF CHOICE.

THE THIRD OPTION awarded at Bergamo

Thomas Fürhapter's THE THIRD OPTION, a documentary critically examining our concepts of normality and disability garners the Best Documentry Prize of the Visti da Vicino-Section at the 36^th Bergamo Film Meeting. The award assigned by the festival audience is to honor the independent filmmaking.

Best Berlinale Documentary THE WALDHEIM WALTZ

Ruth Beckermann wins the GLASHÜTTE ORIGINAL – DOCUMENTARY AWARD selected out of 18 nominated films from the different Berlinale programmes, endowed with € 50,000. Wolfgang Fischer’s STYX took three awards including the EUROPA CINEMAS BERLINALE LABEL, the Prize of the ECUMENICAL JURY for the films screened at the Panorama and the HEINER CAROW Prize.

Panorama Audience Award with Austrian runner-ups

Austrian directors Wolfgang Fischer (STYX) and Katharina Mückstein (L’ANIMALE) came in second and third in the race for the Panorama audience trophy.

Clear, impassioned but never polemical

... that’s what Variety stated about Ruth Beckermann’s astute revisiting of the 1986 Waldheim affair that lead to the collapse of Austria’s comforting narrative of being the first nazi victim. Read more about the Austrians on the Berlinale screens.

Austrian films at the 68^th Berlinale

Ruth Beckermann, Katharina Mückstein, Ludwig Wüst, Werner Boote and three more co-productions add up to an outstanding Austrian presence at the Berlinale 2018: Forum with THE WALDHEIM WALTZ by R. Beckermann and DEPARTURE by L. Wüst. Panorama Special with L’ANIMALE by K.Mückstein, Culinary Cinema presents W. Boote’s THE GREEN LIE.

«I see the Waldheim affair as a conflict of generations»

Ruth Beckermann

Kurt Waldheim’s lapse of memory was the beginning of a process which saw the Austrian narrative – that the country was the first victim of National Socialism – eventually eroded. His campaign for the 1986 presidential election polarised the country. Ruth Beckermann, an activist at the time, has now edited Austrian and international archive material for THE WALDHEIM WALTZ to create a film which, revisits the conflicts in collective and individual memory.

«An alliance between reason and sensitivity.»

Katharina Mückstein

Mati is about to leave high school, on the verge of unlimited opportunities: unpredictable perspectives in the city or the security of the countryside? Female identity or male role models? Listen to her inner voice or follow the expectations of others? Katharina Mückstein's second feature film, L’ANIMALE, exposes life as a intermediate area which floats between certainties, social constraints and lust for freedom, while again and again throwing up new options to seize and risks to take.

«I move around in a painting.»

In Ludwig Wüst’s DEPARTURE two strangers reach a tacit understanding to journey together for a time, which leads them to a radical turning point.

«Producing goods in an unfair way which harms the environment has to be forbidden. »

In THE GREEN LIE Werner Boote not only demonstrates how major companies use huge advertising budgets to make their images “greener” so they can continue unabated to destroy resources and the environment; he also makes the conscious point that sustainable climatic and environmental protection can only be achieved by political means and not just by more aware behaviour on the part of consumers.

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