AUSTRIAN FILM COMMISSION - NEWS

FEATURE

«Looks to be a high-profile festival run.»

Barbara Albert's 5^th feature film MADEMOISELLE PARADIS celebrated its first encounter with the European audience at the San Sebastián festival and enchanted not only Variety critic Guy Lodge.

«How does this woman manage to be so clear and hard towards herself?»

Julian Roman Pölsler

A few years before The Wall, Marlen Haushofer wrote the novella Wir töten Stella (literally We Kill Stella), where a narrator reviews the circumstances surrounding the death of a young girl who has been run over by a truck. The edifice of the solid, middle-class family where 19-year-old Stella comes to stay for a year as a student is soon revealed as a merciless trap; each member of the family betrays the young woman in a different way. A conversation with Julian Pölsler about the second part of his Haushofer Trilogy.

Austrian films at international festivals

Participations September - October 2017

Austrian films on international screens

Theatrical releases
October 2016 – September 2017

LIFE GUIDANCE on a flash forward move to Busan

Ruth Mader’s unsettling dystopia is among the 37 European films participating in the Europe! Umbrella at Asia’s major festival events. LIFE GUIDANCE celebrates its Asian premiere within the Flash Forward selection that focusses on non-Asian filmmakers who stand out for their inventive apporaches to storytelling.

Flahertiana honors Michael Glawogger

The Russian Flahertiana Documentary Festival commemorates Michael Glawogger with a Special Award of the Jury and the Flahertiana Organizing Commitee for his contribution to the documentary cinema. UNTITLED by Monika Willi and Michael Glawogger had been part of this year’s Flahertiana international competition.

THE BEST OF ALL WORLDS wins First Steps Award

Adrian Goiginger

Adrian Goiginger's directorial debut THE BEST OF ALL WORLDS garners one of the most prestigious distictions for young German speaking cinema. The First Steps Award is endowed with € 25,000. "One of the most moving pictures of the year", stated the jury.

42^nd TIFF with world premiere of MADEMOISELLE PARADIS and more ...

Barbara Albert’s eagerly awaited fifth feature film MADEMOISELLE PARADIS has set off for world premiere at the Platform competition. Four more Austrian co-productions are on the schedules of Masters, TIFF Docs and Contemporary World Cinema. Find out the screening dates...

Views from the world premieres in Venice and Toronto

LIFE GUIDANCE by Ruth Mader and MADEMOISELLE PARADIS by Barbara Albert celebrated their world premiere on September 8, one in Toronto, the other one in Venice. Read what the critics said.

HAPPY END: Austria’s entry for Best Foreign Language Film

Oscar winner and two-time Oscar nominee Michael Haneke prepares for another Oscar race: His Cannes competition entry HAPPY END has been selected the Austrian submission for the 2018 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

«I hate political correctness. »

The people in LIFE GUIDANCE have subjugated themselves to the credo of self-optimization and handed their private lives over to an agency. That would be disturbing enough. But Ruth Mader has tightened the screw by setting her dystopia in a period which seems well within reach of the present day. We talked to director Ruth Mader.

Ruth Mader’s LIFE GUIDANCE at Giornate degli Autori

Society is divided into minimum recipients and top achievers, private sphere does no longer exist. Ruth Mader has created a disturbing dystopia and ... the even more unsettling thing – this hollow new world is set in a future more than similar to our present. The world premiere of LIFE GUIDANCE will be celebrated at Giornate degli autori in Venice.

«Being able to see would not bring her more freedom.»

MADEMOISELLE PARADIS takes us to Rococo Vienna and the remarkably talented blind pianist Maria Theresia Paradis, who is torn between her extraordinary musical talent and her desire to live the life of an ordinary young woman within the rules of a rigid society.

MADEMOISELLE PARADIS in Toronto and San Sebastián

After the world premiere in TORONTO (Platform competition), Barbara Albert’s 5^th feature film will head to SAN SEBASTIAN as a contender of the Golden Shell competition. MADEMOISELLE PARADIS takes us to Rococo Vienna and the remarkably talented blind pianist Maria Theresia Paradis who is torn between her extraordinary musical talent and her desire to to live the life of an ordinary young woman within the rules of a rigid society.
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«How do people look at somebody who comes into light?»

Barbara Albert has just finished shooting her new film LIGHT, set in Vienna in the late Rococo period. Light focuses on Maria Theresia Paradis, a musical prodigy who lost her sight at the age of three and her oscillation between light and shadow both in her own life and in society’s perception of her. It is the fourth feature film, produced by NGF Geyrhalterfilm. We talked to producer Michael Kitzberger.

«You have to be like a sensitive record.»

Astrid Johanna Ofner

In his autobiographical novel Farewell to the Parents, Peter Weiss describes the obstacle course facing a child born in the early 20^th century. In her first full-length film FAREWELL, Astrid Johanna Ofner brings out the poetry of this text, composed without dialogue or paragraphs, in a visual version for the big screen with subtle pacing.

«It was always a balancing act.»

Matthias Krepp, Angelika Spangel

Matthias Krepp and Angelika Spangel have assembled video material from digital channels with commentaries and accounts from Iraqi and Syrian refugees now living in Austria, forming a collage about the war, SAND AND BLOOD is an attempt to employ the gripping transposition of images and the voices of witnesses to convey some sense of the unimaginable reality of everyday life dominated by violence.

First films by Astrid J. Ofner and Matthias Krepp atLOCARNO

LOCARNO has announced its 70^th program with two first feature films and one co-production by Austrian filmmakers and producers:
– FAREWELL TO THE PARENTS by Astrid Johanna Ofner (Cineasti del Presente)
– SAND AND BLOOD by Matthias Krepp (Out of Competition)
– THE ICEMAN by Felix Randau (Piazza Grande)

«We are being told how we should think.»

Ruth Mader's new film LIFE GUIDANCE depicts the future as an apparent copy of the present, where imperceptibly yet efficiently an extensive surveillance system draws the net tighter. We had a short talk with the director during the shooting.

UNTITLED wins Best Documentary Award at Five Lakes Festival

Monika Willi, who has realized UNTITLED out of the film footage produced by Michael Glawogger during his shooting in the Balkans, Italy, Northwest and West Africa before his sudden death in April 2014, received the Best Documentary Award at the Five Lakes Festival. The Austrian co-production THE EREMITES took the Fünf Seen-Award, SEVENTEEN by Monja Art the Prize for Best Screenplay.

«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.

Awards at Moscow and Valencia

Verena Altenberger wins the Silver George for Best Actress at the Moscow Film Festival for her performance in Adrian Goiginger’s THE BEST OF ALL WORLDS. The Valencia Cinema Jove festival honors Monja Art’s directorial debut SEVENTEEN with the Premio CIMA for best movie directed by a woman.

BROTHERS OF THE NIGHT on a successful giro d’Italia

After the Best Picture Award at the SICILIA QUEER Filmfest, Patric Chiha’s colorful portraits of young Bulgarian Roma garners the Best Documentary Award at MIX MILANO Festival.

«When fans get together they talk in quotations from the films.»

Karl-Martin Pold

Karl-Markus Pold is a child of the 1980s, but Bud Spencer became the hero of his childhood and, later, the object of his research. In THEY CALLED HIM SPENCER he attempts to capture the phenomenon of Bud Spencer – the personality and the cult surrounding him – in all its unbelievable facets.

Creative Energy Filmpreis to THE MIGRUMPIES

Arman T. Riahi’s media satire receives the Creative Energy Filmpreis, endowed with € 5,000, at the Filmfest Emden-Norderney. THE MIGRUMPIES was selected out of five nominated films.

«As gripping as a satanically inspired soap opera.»

... that's how The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw reviewed Michael Haneke's HAPPY END after its world premiere at the 2017 Cannes Palme d'or competition. He adds, «This is a black comedy of pure sociopathy.» more reviews

«All my films are emotional.»

It is only in a momentary depiction of three generations of bourgeois existence that Michael Haneke allows us to become aware, in his new film HAPPY END, which certainties are likely to slip away, which values to sink beneath the surface. Even when employing the transience of youthful chat media, the filmmaker succeeds in generating lasting unease about ourselves – and within ourselves.

The SYDNEY festival points out 10 European woman directors

For the second time the Sydney IFF sets a focus on outstanding European women filmmakers in order to make them meet with the Australian audience and film industry. Europe! Voices of Women comprises ten films from Europe, including MISTER UNIVERSO by Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel.

«One of the challenges facing me was to create lighting in non-existent rooms.»

In a society where sexual freedom is prohibited by law, the niches of double morality are opened up. In order to narrate a tale of forbidden Iran in his work TEHERAN TABOO, director Ali Soozandeh has chosen an animation technique based on images shot live with actors. We talked to Austrian DOP Martin Gschlacht who provides an insight into an unusual approach on set.

HAPPY END at the 70^th Cannes Festival

Double Palme d’or winner Michael Haneke is back at the Cannes festival presenting HAPPY END – a snapshot from the life of a bourgeois family – with Jean-Louis Trintignant, Isabelle Huppert and Mathieu Kassovitz in competition. WESTERN by German filmmaker Valeska Grisebach, co-produced by coop99 filmproduktion, is part of this year’s Un Certain Regard selection.

56^th Cannes Critics Week selects TEHRAN TABOO

First time director Ali Soozandeh chose the animation medium to provide insight into an opaque and two-faced society where sexual and moral freedom has been banished by religious law. TEHRAN TABOO, shot by Austrian DOP Martin Gschlacht and co-produced by Austrian coop99 filmproduction with German Little Dream Entertainment, is one of the seven competition entries of the 56th Cannes Critics Week

MISTER UNIVERSO awarded in Montevideo and Paris

Tizza Covi, Rainer Frimmel

Universally present MISTER UNIVERSO garners two awards on one weekend: the Audience Award at the Montevideo Film Festival and a Special Mention by the Prix Sauvage jury of the L’Europe autour de l’Europe festival in Paris.

SECONDO ME at
Toronto Hot Docs

After its world premiere at the Locarno Critics Week, SECONDO ME sets out for its North American premiere at the Toronto Hot Docs festival (April 27 to May 7, 2017). Pavel Cuzuioc’s directorial debut reverses the flow of attention at three opera houses by skipping the stage and portraying three cloakroom attendants. SECONDO ME is part of the World Showcase line-up

Six Austrian voices at CPH:DOX

Two thought-provoking first-time documentaries, THE THIRD OPTION by Thomas Fürhapter (vying for Dox:Award) and FREE LUNCH SOCIETY by Christian Tod (eligible for the Politiken Audience Award) will celebrate their world premiere in Copenhagen. HOMO SAPIENS, MISTER UNIVERSO, SAFARI and UNTITLED add to a strong Austrian presence at the upcoming CPH: DOX festival.

WILD MOUSE charms German audience

On German screens since March 9, WILD MOUSE scored the best opening weekend ever of an Austrian movie released in Germany. With 37,000 viewers (previews included even 50,100) Josef Hader’s directorial debut made the second most successful release right behind Oscar winner Moonlight last weekend.

«What is normality? What is disability?»

Thomas Fürhapter

If the results of prenatal diagnosis indicate anomalies, prospective parents are faced with an extremely serious decision. In The Third Option Thomas Fürhapter goes beyond a focus on free choice and individual destinies; he employs a stringent documentary structure to examine social consensus about normality and disability, questioning the true nature of freedom in a society marked by striving for optimization and normalization.

«Curiosity and the desire to improve the world.»

At a time when walls, fears and cutbacks are narrowing the horizon, Christian Tod’s FREE LUNCH SOCIETY reflects on the concept of Unconditional Basic Income, providing a refreshing and illuminating view of the present as a vast realm of unthought-of opportunities.

«I wanted a reversal of perspective.»

Adrian Goiginger

In THE BEST OF ALL WORLDS Adrian Goiginger depicts with striking honesty his childhood years in the disturbing world of a junkie apartment and his mother, who managed to create space for him to have a good childhood despite the chaos of her own addiction.

«The blow to Georg's ego is devastating.»

In his directorial debut WILD MOUSE Josef Hader dispatches an eminent classical music reviewer on a tragi-comic rollercoaster ride, watching closely to see how a sophisticated spirit can be transformed into a wild beast as a result of a bruised ego. A conversation with the writer, director and leading actor.

«A film that never stands still.»

When Michael Glawogger embarked on a journey in December 2013 for his project UNTITLED, it was his desire to make a film that never stands still. He was not to return from that journey. Monika Willi has now edited the material created over about four and a half months, coaxing the narrative and poetic power from this film with no name – a task which was both melancholy and marked by zest for life.

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