a superb black comedy
Variety

A polished, slyly entertaining work
Screen Daily

sharp-witted, superbly acted black comedy
The Film Verdict

MOON won four awards at the 77^th Locarno Film Festival:

Special Jury Prize, given to the second best film of the International Competition, worth 30.000 Swiss francs.
Europa Cinemas Label, awarded from cinema exhibitors providing support for the promotion of the film releases.
Boccalino d'Oro awarded by the independent film critics.
Special Mention from the Ecumenical jury.

Friendship, status, civil courage. There is no social marker that can’t be scrubbed up very nicely for someone prepared to pay the My Companion fees. Matthias is the top performer at the agency. He expertly adopts a new identity for a few hours every day, acting the role of the educated companion at a concert, the exemplary son visiting from overseas or the dad in a pilot's uniform. But he’s helpless when it comes to simply being himself within his own four walls. Bernhard Wenger's feature film debut PEACOCK spans social surfaces and traces the fault lines between the real and the fake with satirical humour.

Bernhard Wenger’s directorial debut PEACOCK is one of the contenders of the 39^th Venice Settimana della Critica (August 28 to September 7, 2024). Wenger’s first feature film, starring Albrecht Schuch and Julia Franz Richter, was produced by Vienna-based NGF Geyrhalterfilm.

World Premiere
August 31 | 13.30 | Sala Perla

Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s Berlinale Golden Bear contender, starring Anja Plaschg, is the Austrian entry to the 2024 Oscar race for Best International Feature Film. Inspired by historical records of interrogations, Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala employ the power of beauty and cruelty in THE DEVIL’S BATH to tell a story of confinement and liberation.

One hard blow catapults Sarah out of the ring and puts an end to her career as a martial arts athlete. She ends up being a personal trainer in the luxury villa of a wealthy Jordanian businessman, teaching three young girls the basics of martial arts. It doesn’t escape Sarah's senses that suppressed voices can be heard behind closed doors. In her second feature film, MOON, Kurdwin Ayub explores the sparse options of female agency and its ruthless limitations.

At first, Juri Rechinsky only went as far as the Ukrainian border, supporting friends, family and refugees in the first weeks of the war. But as he came to appreciate the almost inconceivable repercussions of the invasion on Ukrainian society, his need to risk a trip to the front became more urgent. DEAR BEAUTIFUL BELOVED documents the filmmaker's journeys to his own borders and into the invisible zones of the war region, along the grim routes of grief that has become an everyday phenomenon.
A talk with director Juri Rechinsky and editor Andrea Wagner.

• THREE PATHS TO THE LAKE (1976)
• LEMMINGS 1 – ARCADES +
• LEMMINGS 2 – INJURIES (1979)
• THE REBELLION (1993)

All the four of them,  early works by Michael Haneke,  were recently restored and will celebrate their first appearance on the big screen.

Two young protagonists and everyday life. Being alone at home. Being alone in public, outdoors. Sometimes looking for a connection – only to retreat again soon afterwards. In their second feature film, BLUISH, Lilith Kraxner and Milena Czernovsky explore an intangible state of being in-between after a period of social isolation. While their sensory images trace the vague moods of their characters, the fluid boundaries at the edges of the frame initiate a multi-layered encounter with other media and art forms.

What Gina wants more than anything else is for them all to remain a family. The nine-year-old girl is already taking care of her younger brothers. She’s also prepared to look after the baby that’s on the way. She does her best to keep an eye on her mother, who is in the later stages of pregnancy and suffers from alcoholism. In GINA, filmmaker Ulrike Kofler looks at three generations of a family where failure is perpetuated inescapably, addressing the delicate issue of what happens when the private sphere urgently needs help from outside.

There are two Austrian world premieres on the festival schedules this week:
 
b l u i s h, second feature by Lilith Kraxner & Milena Czernovsky will show at the FID Marseille (June 25 to 30) as an International Competition entry.
 
GINA, also a second feature by Ulrike Kofler, is a contender at the Cinevision Competition at the Munich IFF (June 28 to July 7)

Austrian filmmaker Jessica Hausner will be the president of the Golden Leopard-jury at the 77^th Locarno Film Festival (August 7 to 17, 2024).

Artistic director Giona Nazarro states: A vital and restless filmmaker, Jessica Hausner has created a diverse body of work reflecting the most hidden aspects of contemporary society with extraordinary depth.

Mamargade has no experience of long-term prospects; given the conditions of life in his Somali village, they are simply out of the question. But considering the consequences of his actions would also be against his nature. People here help each other wherever possible, fighting to get by from one day to the next. When his son's school closes, he has to make a decision to provide the boy with a better future. In his feature film debut THE VILLAGE NEXT TO PARADISE, Mo Harawe develops a gentle tone to tell of family and a solidarity that ensures survival in an unforgiving world.

Moscow's inhospitable streets and the stray dogs there have once again inspired Elsa Kremser and Levin Peter. In DREAMING DOGS, Dingo and his homeless mistress Nadja form an inseparable team; the filmmakers accompanied them over three years of an unstable existence. Against the harsh background of financial collapse and loss of livelihoods, a narrative emerges which engages fully with the animal and its impulses, attempting repeatedly to shake off customary connotations.

There's a strong sense of authorship in every scene, every decision.
Screen Daily

an impressively masterful first feature
Les Inrocks

a poignant debut
Variety

visually striking and masterfully told
The Film Verdict

THE VILLAGE NEXT TO PARADISE is part of the Un Certain Regard selection at the 77th Cannes festival (May 14 to 25).
Mo Harawe's feature debut is produced by Vienna-based FreibeuterFilm in collaboration with France, Germany and Somalia.
World Sales: Totem Films

In a windy Somali village, a newly assembled family must navigate between their different aspirations and the complex world surrounding them. Love, trust and resilience will power them through their life paths.

In her comedies, Eva Spreitzhofer aims to make people laugh together in the cinema about things that are harming society. And the issues have multiplied: global warming, Covid denial, social media addiction, transgender discussion... The filmmaker has extended Wanda's patchwork family from What Have We Done to Deserve This? as well as enlarging the complex state of public debate, ensuring that in HOW DO WE GET OUT OF THIS? the ideological sparks fly on Christmas Eve and yet a joint celebration is possible.

They are all invisible. The old people no longer able to cope with everyday life without assistance – and also the women who live under the same roof to provide them with the necessary care, which entails leaving their own homes for an extended period. In 24 HOURS, Harald Friedl observes a Romanian nurse during the course of one care cycle, focusing attention on an activity that is performed every day without receiving public perception or social recognition.

The filmmaker Kat Rohrer has lived long enough in Vienna and New York to know that something is missing both here and there. In Austria, it was the startlingly low visibility of queerness in narratives on screen, which provided her with a good reason to do something about it. Her romantic comedy WHAT A FEELING is carried by the contrast between two families, the incomprehension between two women and the desire to admit, though briefly, a world that is both happy and whole.

For many years now, Friedrich Moser's documentary focus has been on the worldwide web. What once seemed to connect us all has now developed into a diffuse space where doubts and wedges are driven into societies in an increasingly targeted manner. HOW TO BUILD A TRUTH ENGINE addresses the issues of disinformation as a weapon, the call for a new journalism and the urgent need for democratic societies to find a mode of coexistence inside and outside the net.