Six Austrian world premieres by Markus Schleinzer, Tizza Covi & Rainer Frimmel, Ulrike Ottinger, Ruth Beckermann, Adrian Goiginger and Sebastian Brameshuber.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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. 

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.

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

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."

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”. 

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

Having pen pals was the dating platform of the seventies. At least for Abu Bakr Shawky's parents, who grew closer in an exchange of fragile airmail letters between Vienna and Cairo. The Egyptian-Austrian filmmaker employs a time frame of approximately twenty years to study history and stories, especially those of his parents. With political interventions in the background, the focus is on family legends endlessly revisited and embroidered. Nostalgic in appearance, humorous in tone, THE STORIES is a tragi-comic saga of winning and losing and the wheel of history that keeps on turning.

Snow is simultaneously quietly magical and an unpredictable force of nature. And whether there’s too much of it or too little, it presents people with huge challenges. In MELT, Nikolaus Geyrhalter tracks down landscapes of ice and snow which seem unreal and observes at places of solitude as well as at sites of mass tourism how humans deal with this gradually vanishing feature of our world.

Nicole Scherg set out to find a subject that connects people all around the world – and chose the one closest to home. She observes midwives on four continents, noting the knowledge, energy and trust that are evident when they accompany mothers and help newborn beings into existence. Whether in birthing centers, clinics or at home in the living room – across a wide variety of locations, WISE WOMEN shows us how normal our route into this world is, how fragile and mysterious.

The shortlists for European Film Awards are out:  The Cannes Directors’ Fortnight entry MILITANTROPOS by Yelizaveta Smith, Alina Gorlova & Simon Moskovyi, produced by Mischief Films with UA is one of the 15 films preselected for European Documentary Award. Nominations will be unveiled on Nov 18, 2025.

Nikolaus Geyrhalter's highly anticipated new film MELT, a stunning homage to disappearing worlds of snow and ice, begins its festival run with a triple presence this fall:

DOK Leipzig – International Competition | IDFA Amsterdam – Signed | and a first encounter with the Austrian audience at the 63rd Viennale.

Dr. Spittler has made his profession his life's work. Unflinching and unfailing, the neuropsychiatrist visits, questions and advises people who want him to issue a crucial document, certifying in his expert opinion that they can end their lives voluntarily and with medical supervision. In GREEN LIGHT, Pavel Cuzuioc doesn‘t take a position on assisted suicide; he‘s interested in the personality of this convinced loner and his everyday life, which is dominated by ultimate questions and the enormous burden of responsibility.
 

Being interwoven, entwined, even entangled is in the nature of textiles. The thread that Anette Baldauf and Katharina Weingartner pick up in LACE RELATIONS leads from the west of Austria to Nigeria, which has long been one of the Vorarlberg textile industry’s most lucrative markets. The research they conduct leads to the unravelling of unexpected connections between prosperity in the Alpine region and colonial power relations. In cooperation with Joana Adesuwa Reiterer and Chioma Onyenwe, a film was created from two perspectives, between Lagos and Lustenau; as it unfolds, this two-sided material is revealed as a vehicle of capitalism and dominance, of transformation and empowerment.

Ever since we started measuring time mechanically, we have been given precisely 24 hours each day. However, it feels as though we are increasingly pressed for time, no matter what the clock says. In his film essay IN SEARCH OF STOLEN TIME, Konrad Wakolbinger asks who our time belongs to, starting from the capitalist world of work and exploring the very nature of time – which determines all of our lives from morning to night yet remains incomprehensible, even to science.

The radiance of this Viennese hotel in such a prominent location is fading. Lucius Glanz, the manager, stubbornly attempts to resist the march of time, but there’s no stopping the sale of the post-war jewel. THE SOUFFLEUR marks the completion of Gastón Solnicki‘s essayistic Viennese trilogy on transience, as he pays homage to the Hotel Intercontinental and finds in Willem Dafoe a magnetic helmsman for a sinking ship.

« Willem Dafoe is just the person to make this beautifully made little film come to life. »
The Hollywood Reporter
 
« artfully composed with painterly images»
Indiewire

The Venice reviews on Gastón Solnicki's THE SOUFFLEUR

Gastón Solnicki’s new film THE SOUFFLEUR will celebrate its world premiere at the Orizzonti compettion of the 82^nd Venice Film Festival (August 27 – September 6).
THE SOUFFLEUR, starring Willem Dafoe, was produced by Vienna-based Little Magnet Film and KGP Filmproduktion with AR. World sales: Magnify