Marian leaves the city. Without any thought, without any plans. An irresistible impulse propels her to the countryside. The terrorist attack in Vienna has made everyday life in the city unbearable for her. Twenty years earlier, a similar force had impelled her to leave the village where she grew up, and now this is where she returns. In WOODLAND, Elisabeth Scharang creates a force field of experiences where there is no movement for generations, yet everything can change in a second; her protagonist is brought to a point of absolute zero – which is essential if she is to get her bearings afresh on the past and the future.

It’s a festival summer with Austrian filmmaking in focus: After Jerusalem in July, it’s now the 29^th Sarajevo FF (August 11 to 18) to shine a light on films made in Austria:

Sudabeh Mortezai’s new film EUROPA will celebrate its world premiere in the Heart of Sarajevo competition. Jessica Hausner will be the tribute guest 2023 presenting all her six feature films. The Industry Days will host an Austrian delegation and one project selected at the CineLink co-production platform.
 

The European flag flies proudly, promising respected rights and respectable prosperity. International corporations are currently colouring their image green and feminist. In EUROPA, Sudabeh Mortezai focusses on the vast shadowy areas behind all this. The two sides of Europe clash in an Albanian valley, revealing the price to be paid for success and the direction chosen for the future.

When the first Sarajevo Film Festival took place in October 1995, the near end of the war was not yet in sight. Elma Tataragić has been part of the festival committee since the very beginning. She shared with us her memories of the festival's start in Sarajevo under siege and her thoughts on Austrian filmmaking, to which 29th SFF has dedicated a focus program.

Julia Gutweniger and Florian Kofler’s new film VISTA MARE – perspicacious observations on those who work for those who crowd the Italian beaches for a short summer break –  will celebrate its world premiere at the Locarno Semaine de la Critique  (4-11 August)

Two Austrian projects – CALM by Sara Fattahi, MILA / MARIJA by Andrina Mračnikar – are selected by Alliance 4 Development.

A view of the sea represents a longing – often to recuperate from a whole year of hard work and everyday stress. To provide some people with this brief break on the beach in the sun, others have to work hard all summer. In VISTA MARE, Julia Gutweniger and Florian Kofler have created an essay on visible relaxation and invisible activity, focusing on the landscape of Adriatic tourism, which is operated at full throttle for a few summer weeks every year without much regard for resources.

The MoMA is hosting the North American premiere of Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel’s VERA
(August 9 to 15) presenting the film as “One of the most fascinating and nearly uncategorizable features to come out of the 2022 Venice Film Festival”
Read more of the New York reviews

Supremely audacious and disturbing
Variety
 
A real head-turner of a film
Screen International
 
a film with a cutting humor and a cruelty without name
Le Monde

In her class Miss Novak warns her students against eating without awareness. Every morsel on a fork should be examined closely, every bite considered carefully. At some point, her students reach the stage where they can regard intake of food as a dispensable ballast on their journey to a better world. In CLUB ZERO, Jessica Hausner observes how power creeps up silently, and how faith quietly eats away at reason.
 

Jessica Hausner’s 6^th fiction feature is a Palme d’or competition entry at the 76^th Cannes festival (May 16 to 27). CLUB ZERO, starring Mia Wasikowska and Sidse Babett Knudsen, produced by Vienna-based coop99 filmproduktion, is celebrating its world premiere on Monday, May 22.

This is Jessica Hausner's  6^th artistic appearance in Cannes after LITTLE JOE (2019, Best Actress Emily Beecham), AMOUR FOU (2014), HOTEL (2004), LOVELY RITA (2001) and her short INTER-VIEW (1999).

Feminism is a young movement, and in that sense it has been fairly effective. But despite all the achievements and the urgent needs it addresses, the term itself somehow remains unpopular. Filmmaker Katharina Mückstein, who has experienced academic feminism as a formative school of thought, feels there is insufficient scientific expertise in a public debate that has become highly emotional. Her documentary FEMINISM WTF provides impulses for consideration – across a spectrum of shimmering colours – intended to move this urgent debate towards greater objectivity.

Silence is a tactic often employed within families. As was the case with Michaela, who was an adult when she instigated a radical break with the village where she grew up. Only the death of her father brings her and her eight-year-old daughter back to the old house from buried times. Achmed Abdel-Salam's exciting directorial debut SMOTHER explores dilapidated rooms and overgrowth gone rampant, prompting memories to flare up which unravel a painful secret.

She is a musician who has undertaken detailed research into the origin of European Klezmer music; he's a cameraman, which provided him with a good reason to stay in touch with her. In their debut film THE KLEZMER PROJECT, Leandro Koch and Paloma Schachmann have staged themselves in the fictional setting of a possible love story in order to explore a music in a constant state of flux. It’s a documentary voyage from Argentina to rural areas of Eastern Europe – and in the process they tell a story of slow fading, of brutal disappearance and of survival and further life.

Its name has just five letters, the Austrian dream factory in the mountains of Tyrol. Every year, youngsters who are crazy about winter sports apply to the Stams Schigymnasium | Ski Academy to make their talent and technique fit enough to compete with the best in the world. In STAMS Bernhard Braunstein observes young people between the ages of 14 and 18 who are highly motivated in their endeavours to be among the very best, though this involves dedicating themselves to a ruthless performance principle.