AUSTRIAN FILMS - NEWS

Amazing Austrian presence at KARLOVY VARY

Our outstanding film year 2026 is once again reflected in the lineup of the 60th Karlovy Vary IFF, taking place July 3–7. Rosa Friedrich's MY FRIEND THE PORN STAR will celebrate its world premiere in the Proxima Competition. The programme also features the latest highlights from Cannes: GENTLE MONSTER, EVERYTIME, and THE DREAMED ADVENTURE, alongside Silver Bear winner ROSE and Venice entry THE SOUFFLEUR in the Horizons programme.

More Austrian filmmaking can be discovered at the Central Stage Industry Days and across the festival’s short film programmes.

«She senses who she is and what she wants.»

At Mia’s school, preparations are in full swing for an anniversary: 500 years of life without monsters, the victory of order over chaos – it’s definitely an occasion to be celebrated. But Mia is a rebellious spirit, and she has her doubts. She senses that there might be wilder, more fantastical facets to the world, so she starts doing some research. MONSTER MIA is a journey of adventure to the universe of otherness, brought to life in the Viennese animation studio arx anima under the direction of Verena Fels.

Austrian films at international festivals

Participations June 2026

Award Winners
2026

Awards + Nominations 2026
starting in January 2026

Open Calls
for Projects

Upcoming Deadlines
June - September 2026

Austrian films on international screens

Theatrical releases
October 2016 – June 2026

MONSTER MIA at the Annecy Animation Film Festival

MONSTER MIA, the new production from the Vienna-based animation studio arx anima, is celebrating its world premiere at the renowned Annecy Animation Festival on Friday June 26.

MONSTER MIA, a lighthearted adventure into otherness, was brought to life under the direction of Verena Fels.

«You can change something if you want to.»

Harald Sicheritz

Harald Sicheritz still remembers his years at high school and the sudden sense that change was in the air. People in Austria who know the name Bruno Kreisky think of the 1970s, the heyday of Social Democracy and the Chancellor with the measured tones. It’s less well known that he was born in 1911 into a well-heeled Jewish family and was by no means predestined to build the foundations of his political career in the Young Socialist Workers. In BRUNO – THE YOUNG KREISKY, the filmmaker focuses on Kreisky’s (political) coming of age.

Prix Un Certain Regard to Sandra Wollner's EVERYTIME

Shining finale to a fantastic Cannes Film Festival:

Sandra Wollner wins the Un Certain Regard Prize for her critically acclaimed third feature film EVERYTIME.

The Palme d'or competition contender THE DREAMED ADVENTURE by Valeska Grisebach, a minority co-production coproduced by EVERYTIME producer Panama Films wins the Jury Prize.

«You could call it pop poetry.»

Benji & Jono Bergmann

Noga Erez's music is so many things at the same time: with its roots in a range of different genres, it is closely entwined with her life, her fears, her rage, her vitality, her political stance and, above all, her relationship with Ori Rousso, her partner on stage and in her heart. Fascinated by the tension between creative drive and emotional ambivalence, the filmmakers Benji & Jono Bergmann observed the vibrant duo from Israel and accompanied them during an eventful period of their lives; in the hail of international politics, their film portrait NOGA reveals a sensitive space between the private and the political.

GENTLE MONSTER and EVERYTIME: widely sold

Palme d’Or contender GENTLE MONSTER has emerged as a big commercial success at the Cannes Market: the film has sold in more than 40 countries worldwide including a major multi-territory deal with Netflix for North America. Un Certain Regard top prize winner EVERTIME has been sold to 12 territories in Europe and Asia.

Press reviews on EVERYTiME

«This is cinema at its most necessary: unresolved, uncompromising, and fully alive.»
International Cinephile Society

«an exceptionally well-calibrated study of an untimely death and its aftermath.»
Screen Daily

«a brilliantly directed, highly enigmatic.»
Cineuropa

«one of the undisputed highlights of this year's Cannes Film Festival.»
profil

Press reviews on GENTLE MONSTER

«A tough and unflinching social drama about the predators among us.»
Indiewire

«Kreutzer’s craftsmanship is once again much in evidence.»
The Hollywood Reporter

«Marie Kreutzer's grimly persuasive follow-up to the superb Corsage.»
Variety

«Who is actually watching?»

A careless moment, an edge, an abyss. Jessi's fall in the morning light. Suddenly her little sister, her mother and her boyfriend have to keep on living with her absence.
Sandra Wollner’s cinema is not confined to storytelling in a classical narrative sense; instead, it traces states and perceptions, exploring attempts to find a modus vivendi when a person has been lost. In EVERYTIME, memories and an unlived future become entwined in a displaced reality that can admit the unthinkable in the face of the inconceivable.

79^thCANNES with
Marie Kreutzer and Sandra Wollner in Official Selection

COMPETITION
GENTLE MONSTER by Marie Kreutzer
World premiere: May 15 | 22:00 | Grand Théâtre Lumière

UN CERTAIN REGARD
EVERYTIME by Sandra Wollner
World premiere: May 18 | 11:30 | Salle Debussy

Minority co-production | COMPETITION
THE DREAMED ADVENTURE by Valeska Grisebach
WP May 22 | 15:00 | Grand Théâtre Lumière

«We’ve banished death from our lives.»

Illness, healing and health care systems have preoccupied the filmmaker and science journalist Kurt Langbein for decades. In 2012, he shared his account of being successfully treated for cancer in the TV documentary Miracle Healing. Now, in his highly personal feature documentary DYING FOR BEGINNERS, he explains that the illness has returned and depicts his showdown with mortality. In the context of today's high-tech medicine, he also appeals for a view of life that again accepts death as part of being human.

«It's a tough job.»

It is not only on the actual election day that the contest to achieve power is marked by unpredictability. When Harald Friedl finished the first days of filming, his protagonist Andreas Babler was neither at the helm of Austria’s Social Democratic Party nor Vice-Chancellor of the Republic. Initially, the film was intended to focus on him as a political grassroots worker and mayor, but in June 2023 he became party leader, to everyone’s surprise, and was immediately faced with a general election. THE RACE accompanies a lone candidate and his team in the relentless pace of an election campaign, where the outcome is primarily dependent on the merciless media battle between content and effect.

«Can we relate to each other’s problems and joys?»

The pandemic didn’t just bring our everyday lives and social relationships to a near standstill—it also reduced the possibilities of documenting the world to almost zero. Filmmaker Juri Rechinsky found a solution: no crew, no director of photography, just a body cam mounted on the upper bodies of a wide variety of people, opening up an unfiltered view of their reality. Together with Mario Hainzl, he spent several years creating a PORTRAIT OF NOWNESS, edited from hundreds of hours of raw footage, which allows audiences to slip into the immediate perspective of the protagonists across contexts and continents.

Berlinale 2026: A Silver Bear and 4 more awards to Austrian films

This is our wonderful outcome at the 76th Berlinale:
Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance to ROSE protagonist Sandra Hüller
photo: © berlinale

Giuseppe Becce Award + Special Mention for Prize of the Guild of German Arthouse Cinemas to THE LONELIEST MAN IN TOWN

Label Europa Cinemas + 2nd Place – Panorama Audience Award (feature film) to FOUR MINUS THREE.

Congrats to the directors, producers and their teams!

Screen Daily on THE LONELIEST MAN ..: «There is charm and tenderness in abundance.»

«The Loneliest Man in Town creates a unique vibe.»
The Hollywood Reporter

«There is charm and tenderness here in abundance.»
Screen Daily

«A droll delight from Austria»
The Film Verdict

Screen Daily on ROSE: «A strikingly handsome picture.»

«a trailblazing queer hero»
The Hollywood Reporter

«ROSE’s linear elegance and delicate craft collaborate with Hüller’s riveting work.» 
Variety

«Sandra Hüller is phenomenal»
Screen Daily

Variety on BLOOD COUNTESS: «A gleefully irreverent film.»

«A hilarious Isabelle Huppert fully puts the vamp into vampire.»
Variety

«Genre subversion and visual extravagance have always been Ottinger specialities.»
Screen Daily

«A visually ravishing movie»
indiewire

Screen Daily on WAX & GOLD: «fresh and nuanced»

«a fresh and nuanced view of a country whose uniqueness is still poorly understood.»
Screen Daily

«True to Beckermann’s desire to meaningfully and thoughtfully engage with society and culture»
The Film Verdict

«An original documentary that confirms the curiosity of a filmmaker with a particularly eclectic body of work.»
Le Polyester

ICS on FOUR MINUS THREE: «A moving portrayal»

«a moving portrayal of grappling through life after a great loss.»
International Cinephile Society

«A solid Euro drama, extremely well-executed.»
Journey into Cinema

«a devastating drama on loss, grief and letting go»
Cineuropa

ICS on LONDON: «One of the year’s most insightful and thoughtful works.»

«One of the year’s most insightful and thoughtful works.»
International Cinephile Society

«An intelligent and absorbing film with a thrilling sting in its tail.»
Filmuforia

«He has captured the special feeling of informal closeness between strangers so aptly that you feel like driving off right away with Bobby.»
taz

«Rose isn’t a revolutionary.»

Markus Schleinzer

It dawned on Rose at an early age that if you want to lead an independent life, with access to education and property, you would do well to be a man – or at least, to wear pants. In the century of the Thirty Years' War, this young woman chooses the path of disguise and has considerable success. She doesn’t realize until it’s too late that the village will demand a high price from her for this "betrayal" of their community. As meticulous as a historical novel, as timely as a sharp-eyed look at the present, Markus Schleinzer's ROSE speaks to us of fundamental inequality, of the courage to attain freedom and of the ever-present walls that society erects to exclude those who are different.

«He has heard, played and lived nothing but the blues.»

Tizza Covi, Rainer Frimmel

The most powerful bond in Al’s life would seem to be with Vienna. He lives in the apartment where he grew up, in the city he has never left. But his music comes from somewhere else entirely. The guitarist has internalized the blues rhythms of the Mississippi Delta as if he had absorbed them there. His beloved Viennese home is bursting with nostalgia and memories – of his best years, of his great love. But these days there’s no place on the Viennese housing market for dreamers like him. Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel's THE LONELIEST MAN IN TOWN is a homage to the spirit of resistance and the determination to reject compromise.

«So many fantasies have grown up around her.»

Ulrike Ottinger

Vampires have descended on Vienna with nefarious intent. Eager criminologists, vampirologists and psychologists soon gather at the scene, determined to avert a disaster. They seem unlikely to succeed. Ulrike Ottinger's ironic venture into the vampire genre, THE BLOOD COUNTESS, has its roots in an extended journey from Berlin to Vienna. The bizarre and gruesome places she discovered on the way provide the visually impressive backdrop for a satirical exploration of the city’s dark depths and the unfathomable power of evil.

«My positioning as a European has changed.»

Ruth Beckermann

In Ethiopia, the filmmaker comes to realize, everything is different. Not just the calendar; even a classic hotel like the Hilton in the capital has an unusually strong identity. The legendary Emperor Haile Selassie, as a striking figure in the media during her childhood, along with Ryszard Kapuściński's successful book The Emperor, as a view of the mechanism of power he inspired, provided the impetus for the film essay WAX & GOLD. In it, Ruth Beckermann reflects on the relativity of our (historical) knowledge and on shifts in the perception of the world order, both her own and those outside.

«She grew into a reluctant heroine.»

Adrian Goiginger

Heli, Barbara and their two children are a happy family. Not only because the parents both earn their living as clowns, but also because these four people are good for each other. The extent to which Barbara's life is ruptured when her three loved ones die in a car accident is scarcely conceivable. FOUR MINUS THREE is based on a real stroke of fate. To convey the force involved tangibly, step by step, Adrian Goiginger entwines Barbara's life before and after, thus creating space for both the pain and her determination to make a new start.

«A destination that’s more of a feeling.»

Sebastian Brameshuber

Highways are regarded as unsightly corridors to be left behind as soon as possible, simply the means to reach a desired destination. The Vienna/Salzburg route has become part of everyday life for Bobby since he started paying regular visits to a friend in hospital. Strangers accompany him on the long journey, chatting, philosophizing or remaining silent. But Austria’s West Autobahn was also the country’s first arterial road to the west, routed by the Nazis through beautiful landscape and completed after the war. In Sebastian Brameshuber’s chamber piece LONDON, personal stories of the present resonate with history while conveying quiet concern for the future.

«We think we can fix everything.»

Susanne Brandstätter

The Earth has become uninhabitable for humankind. There had been warnings: the scientists make clear statements about dwindling biodiversity, climate change and, above all, the fatal monopoly position of mega-corporations. In her science fiction scenario HUNGRY, Susanne Brandstätter interweaves an endangered present on the sound level and visual imagery of a desolate future without people, and this hybrid view on the state of the planet makes the urgency visible and the first signs of action tangible

«Forgotten Alliances.»

Othmar Schmiderer

Still in balance. Off balance. Back in balance. Many elements of our ecosystems are on a knife edge, and future scenarios are bleak. Othmar Schmiderer's attention is devoted to the forces opposing this development. ELEMENTS OF(F) BALANCE explores organisms of resilience, strategies of repair and, above all, the symbiotic connections which have always been employed by nature to ensure its continued existence in a "spirit of we", thus providing a forward-looking model for human interaction with the planet."

«Embrace the unknown.»

Packed to the brim with people and possessions, the Fiat 126 containing Jola Wieczorek and her family crossed the Austrian border in March 1989 after driving from Poland. The Iron Curtain dividing East and West was still theoretically in place, but the political situation had eased to such an extent that Poles no longer needed a visa to travel abroad. Austria became the new home of the Wieczoreks. DAYS YET UNKNOWN is a very personal look into the past, when the young family left home behind and embarked upon a "better" future, which turned out to be an existence somewhere “in between”.

HUNGRY and ELEMENTS OF(F) BALANCE at IFFR Rotterdam

The 55th Rotterdam Film Festival has published its 2026 program. We're delightetd to highlight two Austrian films selected for the Harbour section
World premiere
HUNGRY by Susanne Brandstätter
International premiere
ELEMENTS OF(F) BALANCE by Othmar Schmiderer

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