AUSTRIAN FILM COMMISSION

Oscars 2022: GREAT FREEDOM is the Austrian candidate for Best International Feature Film

The Cannes winner (Jury Prize Un Certain Regard) GREAT FREEDOM by Sebastian Meise has been selected to enter the 2022 Oscar race for Best International Feature Film. Since its world premiere at Cannes the film has been collecting award after award on a dense festival circuit. It is part of the pre-selection for the European Film Award 2021 and will be released in the US by MUBI in early 2022.

Sitges Fantastic Film Festival: Double win for LUZIFER

The Sitges Fantastic Film Festival (oct. 7-17) honors the two leading actors of Peter Brunner's LUZIFER: Susanne Jensen and Frank Rogowski won the awards for Best Female Performance and Best Male Performance at one of the world's foremost fantasy and horror film festivals.

Austrian films at international festivals

Participations September - October 2021

Heart of Sarajevo for Best Feature Film
Heart of Sarajevo for Best Actor Georg Friedrich
CICAE Arthouse Cinema Award

Andreas Horvath is mentor of the efp Future Frames session 2021

Austrian director Andreas Horvath is this year’s mentor at the efp Future Frames meeting for young talents at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival. The director of Lilian (Cannes, Director’s Fortnight 2019), Earth’s Golden Playground and This Ain’t No Heartland will hold a master class and give insight into his cinematic approach and visual language.

Screen Daily on HINTERLAND: «The Third Man meets Se7en»

Screen Daily critic Neil Young wrote, “The film imaginatively deploys green-screen technology to conjure off-kilter visions of the Austrian capital a century ago.(…) HINTERLAND successfully avoids being swallowed up by its own aesthetic via the narrative’s propulsive momentum and the magnetic central performance by Murathan Muslu.”

INTERVIEW

«The whole world was out of line»

Stefan Ruzowitzky

Peter Perg’s world has become completely out of line. In 1914, when he left to fight in the First World War, full of optimism, it was for his Emperor… But when he returns from prisoner of war camp several years after the war finishes with a handful of his men, it is to discover that only a fraction of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire now calls itself Austria. Stefan Ruzowitzky filmed his actors for HINTERLAND using blue screen technology. The dark lanes, the façades and structures of desolate Vienna which appears completely out of line were all created on the computer, providing a grim background to the hunt for an obsessed serial killer.

INTERVIEW

«He is the last and the first who speaks his language.»

Peter Brunner

Johannes lives with his deeply religious mother in an Alpine hut surrounded by nature, close to God but far from the despised people down in the valley. A young man with the mind of a child, he can barely master the spoken word and is unconditionally tied to his mother, who has attempted to protect him by defining the world in simple terms as consisting of God and the forces of evil. Peter Brunner is a filmmaker who explores in images the rifts within his characters. In LUZIFER he brings about a collision between fanaticism and freedom which is a depiction of blind faith and its misunderstandings. LUZIFER, featuring Franz Rogowski and Susanne Jensen in the main roles, has been made by Ulrich Seidl Filmproduktion.

KARINA RESSLER is member of the Locarno First Film Jury

As an important place for young talent and discoveries, every year the Locarno Film Festival invites a jury composed of three personalities from the world of cinema to award the best first films presented as international or world premieres in all the sections (except Semaine de la Critique and Panorama Suisse).This year it's up to Austrian editor Karina Ressler, director and producer Amjad Abu Alala and filmmaker Katharina Wyss to judge the first time entries at the Locarno festvial.

GREAT FREEDOM wins Jury Prize at Un Certain Regard

Sebastian Meise returns from Cannes with one of the top awards of the Un Certain Regard section. The jury under the presidency of Andrea Arnold awarded Sebastian Meise’s captivating drama GREAT FREEDOM with the Jury Prize. This second feature film starring Franz Rogowski and Georg Friedrich, produced by Austrian FreibeuterFilm and German Rohfilm Productions, was one of 20 contenders in a line-up that refocused on the discovery of emerging filmmakers this year.

THR on GREAT FREEDOM: «Stark, shocking and beautiful.»

The Hollywood Reporter critic David Rooney wrote, Chronicling an ignominious chapter in queer history, Great Freedom is also a contemplative psychological study of the effects of incarceration, and beyond that, an unconventional love story, tender but unsentimental. read more

LOCARNO 2021 with new films from Stefan Ruzowitzky and Peter Brunner

The 74^th Locarno Festival (August 4 to 14) has announced its selection that includes two new films from Austria. Stefan Ruzowitzky will present HINTERLAND on the Piazza Grande, Peter Brunner’s LUZIFER is a contender in the main competition for the Pardo d’oro 2021. The Swiss, German and Austrian co-production MONTE VERITÀ will also celebrate its world premiere on the Piazza Grande.

MUBI signs multi-territory deal for GREAT FREEDOM

Streamer and theatrical distributor MUBI has signed a multi-territory deal for Sebastian Meise’s second feature GREAT FREEDOM, which premiered in Cannes' Un Certain Regard. The deal closed with sales outfit The Match Factory covers North America, UK, Ireland, LATAM (excluding Mexico), Turkey and India.

JESSICA HAUSNER is part of the jury of the 74^thCANNES festival

Together with jury president Spike Lee, five women and 3 men of seven nationalities, coming from five continents, will judge the 24 films of the 2021 international Competition and award the PALME D’OR 2021.

INTERVIEW

«Imagine you live in a world where love is forbidden by law.»

Sebastian Meise

When the state dictates which love is allowed to exist, it puts lives at stake. As a gay man Hans Hoffman is thrown into a concentration camp under the Nazis; immediately after being liberated by the Allies he is put back behind bars, because the passion in his heart is against the law. Both in the Nazi dictatorship and also in the democracy which follows. Sebastian Meise’s GREAT FREEDOM casts a subtle light on elements of society (and of societies) which are still concealed. His protagonist Hans represents countless lives which were destroyed because regimes abused one of the most fundamental human rights by means of social discrimination and legal persecution – and, in too many cases, this is still happening.

INTERVIEW

«Like an extended prison.»

By the middle of March only 21 of the scheduled 32 shooting days for Sebastian Meise’s second feature film GREAT FREEDOM Freedom, with Georg Friedrich and Franz Rogowski in the leading roles, were in the can when everything was shut down. But at the end of June FreibeuterFilm was the first production company to resume filming, and they finished the shoot. A conversation with the producers about their current feature film GREAT FREEDOM, Stefan Ruzowitzky’s HINTERLAND and the new approach to production, in zones and on Zoom.

INTERVIEW

«In capitalism everything becomes a commodity: a person’s lifetime, his body, his being.»

C.B. Yi

Fei is a boy from the countryside. At some point he is drawn to the city, or financial necessity forces him to make the move. His family is only too happy to accept the good money he earns as a male prostitute, but by taking this step he has sacrificed his place in the village and in the family. C.B. Yi, in his feature film debut MONEYBOYS, depicts the desolation of not only one young man but a whole generation which can all too easily find itself in a dead end between the financial and moral pressures exerted by society.

Cannes 2021: GREAT FREEDOM and MONEYBOYS at Un Certain Regard

The Cannes Festival – this year scheduled for a summer edition from July 6 to 17 – has announced its Official Selection 2021: We are thrilled to announce that two Austrian co-productions will be part of the Un Certain Regard selection 2021: GREAT FREEDOM by Sebastian Meise and MONEYBOYS by C. B. Yi.
Lukas Valenta Rinner’s new project LANDSCAPES OF FEAR is invited to the Cinéfondation’s L’Atelier, Magdalena Lauritsch’s (not yet finished) debut RUBIKON is one of the seven genre films picked for the Frontières Buyers Showcase at the Marché du Film.

INTERVIEW

«He was a memory worker. Day and night.»

Marko Feingold (1913 – 2019) was arrested soon after the Nazis seized power and survived six years during the reign of terror in various concentration camps. After the liberation he built up a new existence for himself in Austria, and throughout his long life he never tired of raising his voice to warn against forgetting or denying that period. At the age of 105 he gave an exclusive interview to the filmmakers Christian Krönes, Florian Weigensamer, Christian Kermer and Roland Schrotthofer; in the documentary film A JEWISH LIFE his fearless determination to fight on and survive refuses to be silenced.

Screen International on SNOTTY BOY: «Meticulous and witty»

Here are the first press reviews on SNOTTY BOY after its world premiere at the Annecy Festival.
Screen International: meticulously and wittily detailed and like Deix himself, confrontationally iconoclastic, fearlessly tackling religious and social mores, and skewering hypocrisy and bigotry.
Deadline: an affectionate, playful homage to Deix

INTERVIEW

«Poetic, cheeky, bawdy and surprising.»

Marcus H. Rosenmüller

Caricaturist Manfred Deix had an unrelenting view of his compatriots: portly and deformed in stature, lecherous, reactionary and hostile to foreigners in manner: thus the Deixian depiction of the average Austrian is preserved in countless publications. Deix’s provincial childhood in the Lower Austria of the 1950s and 60s may have provided the first impulses for his drawings; it has certainly proved inspirational for the first full-length Austrian animation film, directed by Marcus H. Rosenmüller und Santiago López Jover. SNOTTY BOY borrows the spirit and silhouettes from Deix’s cosmos of characters, portraying with humor and a light touch the confines of an era which resonates down to the present day in terms of certain political attitudes.

INTERVIEW

«My first impression was definitely a shock.»

Santiago López Jover

SNOTTY BOY, Austria’s first feature length animation film, borrows the spirit and silhouettes from the unique cosmos created by late Austrian caricaturist Manfred Deix. Santiago López Jover co-directed the film together with Marcus H. Rosenmüller, adding his profound experience as animation artist to an ambitious project which respectfully translates the essence of the legendary cartoons.

SNOTTY BOY, the first Austrian feature-length animation film, premieres at Annecy

It's an absolute first: SNOTTY BOY, inspired by characters created by late Austrian caricaturist Manfred Deix, is the first feature length animation film produced with an Austrian funding majority. Which makes us all the more proud to announce that SNOTTY BOY has been selected to celebrate its world premiere in the main competition of the top-notch festival for animated films the Annecy International Animation Film Festival.

Anne Laurent-Delage to be new Executive Director of the AFC

The board of the Austrian Film Commission has resolved unanimously that the Deputy Director of the AFC, Anne Laurent-Delage, who has been responsible for international relations for many years, will take the position of Executive Director from 1 July 2021.

LILLIAN wins Best Film Award at Padova

Andreas Horvath's intriguing road-movie LILLIAN entered the festival circuit at the Cannes Directors' Fortnight in 2019 and keeps on travelling. The 8^th Detour Film Festival in the Italian city of Padova honored LILLIAN with its Best Film Award, pointing out that the film is a pure cinematic experience, a fascinating and radical cinematic and existential journey that pushes the viewer to revise their physical and conceptual maps.

INTERVIEW

«Where are we all going?»

Jasmila Žbanić

Aida is running. Racing desperately, helplessly between the central offices of the Crisis Unit at the UN safe area and the perimeter fence, which is secured by armed soldiers. As a local interpreter, can she possibly do anything to help the inhabitants of her home town? Get her own family in saftety? Rescue at least one of her sons? In her film QUO VADIS, AIDA? Jasmila Žbanić has captured the harrowing events of the Srebrenica massacre in 11 July 1995 with compelling immediacy, earning her an Oscar nomination for Best International Feature and the Independent Spirit Award.

Deutscher Kamerapreis to Christine A. Maier

Austrian DoP Christine A. Maier wins the Deutscher Kamerapreis in the category fiction film for her outstanding work in Jasmila Žbanić’ Oscar nominated QUO VADIS, AIDA? Christine A. Maier's camera moves with the action, it races, pauses (…), opens spaces, looks, looks away, it captures emotions and creates understanding and comprehension, stated the jury.

THE TROUBLE WITH BEING BORN awarded at Fantasporto

Sandra Wollner’s second feature film, THE TROUBLE WITH BEING BORN, launched at the Berlinale Encounters 2020, wins the Special Award of the Jury at the 41^st Fantasporto Film Festival. This is the first time a woman wins one of the top fantasy awards of the festival.

INTERVIEW

«An adventure film with a scary factor.»

Daniel Geronimo Prochaska

It’s a daring step for Sabine and her two sons, Hendrik and Eddie, moving from northern Germany to a village in the southernmost corner of Austria to begin a new life after the death of her husband. When their new house in Carinthia starts to display signs that invisible forces are at work, the boys find two courageous kids their own age in the village, and the gang of four set about exposing mysteries that have been hidden for years. THE SCARY HOUSE is Daniel Prochaska’s cinema debut, a striking bid to initiate younger audiences into horror movies with a light-hearted touch.

INTERVIEW

«He is the person he wants to be.»

Harald Aue

It isn’t so often that a person establishes a circus the size of Roncalli without having grown up in the milieu of artistes and acrobats. The personal union of Zippo the Clown and Bernhard Paul the director has determined the identity of this circus for decades: an arena which provides a very special stage for the artistry of the clown, both serious and rib-tickling. In his documentary film A CLOWN, A LIFE Harald Aue focuses on Bernhard Paul both with and without the face of a clown: the circus-maker, the collector of old bric-a-brac, and the boy who always remained true to his childhood dreams.

World premiere of A CLOWN, A LIFE at DOK.fest Munich

Harald Aue’s portrait of Bernhard Paul and his Circus Roncalli, is also a homage to the poetic art of clowning. A CLOWN, A LIFE has its world premiere in the DOK.panorama section of the 2021 DOKfest Munich online edition (May 5 to 23). WOOD by Monika Lăzurean-Gorgan, Michaela Kirst, Ebba Sinzinger will be screening at DOK.focus Empowerment. See full list of Austrian (co-)productions at Munich.

PLEASE HOLD THE LINE wins FIPRESCI Prize

Pavel Cuzuioc’s second feature documentary pointed out by the film critics: PLEASE HOLD THE LINE wins the FIPRESCI Prize at the goEAST Festival of Central and Eastern European Film. “The film shows”, stated the jury, “intense human relationships that normally appear to be simple everyday interactions.”

Independent Spirit Award to QUO VADIS, AIDA?

Jasmila Žbanić QUO VADIS, AIDA? picked up the Independent Spirit Award in the Best International Film category. The annual Independent Spirit Awards ceremony traditionally held shortly before the Oscars, honors outstanding achievements in independent filmmaking. QUO VADIS, AIDA?, one of the five 2021 Oscar nominees for Best International Feature Film, was co-produced by Vienna-based coop99 filmproduktion.

52^ndVisions du Réel with world premieres of SOLDIER AHMET and THE BUBBLE

The 52^ndVisions du Réel Festival at the Swiss town of Nyon kicks off its second “Corona” edition offering a hybrid festival format from April 15 to 25, 2021. Two Austrian (co-)productions are to celebrate their world premiere: Jannis Lenz presents his first feature SOLDIER AHMET within the Burning Lights Competition, the Swiss-Austrian co-production THE BUBBLE by Austrian director Valerie Blankenbyl is a contender in the International Competition.

WHY NOT YOU and SPACE DOGS are the Bolzano winners

Two Austrian winners at the 34th Bolzano online Film Festival: Evi Romen’s WHY NOT YOU takes the Prize for Best Feature Film “for its courageous approach to the story of an outsider” and the terrific performance of its lead actor. The Prize for Best Documentary went to Elsa Kremser and Levin Peter’s SPACE DOGS, “a powerful film”, as the jury puts it, “about the absurdity and cruelty of human action and about innocence, tenderness and the natural brutality of animals”

INTERVIEW