Austria
Exposed to bad influences since childhood, Mary, a young girl is pushed by her mother to approach an elderly banker by the name of Harber. After almost driving her fiancee to suicide and seducing his mentally-ill son, she realizes through a metaphorical dream the scope of her negligence. Sentenced to prison for incitement to murder Harber, she sees herself as a parallel figure to Lea, Lot’s wife in Sodom, where the Angel of the Lord warns the sinful citizens of the city of their impending doom. Lea oppresses the angel and eventually turns it over to the pagan priests when her sexual advances to it are rejected. In another dream sequence, Mary becomes the Queen of Syria, whose oppressed people turn against her and who, in turn, condemns a young man who loves her to death. Finally, her dream returns to the present time and when she awakens, she runs back to her former lover.
At the end of his life, Wilhelm Reich – psychiatrist and experimental scientist searching for the fundamentals of life – finds himself on trial, charged with deception. His dream of liberating human individuality makes him a dangerous opponent of an American system that is striving after 1945 for global hegemony, using all available means. Was it madness to believe in man’s liberty or was Reich simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, and, being a holistic global thinker, accurately observing far-reaching socio-political linkages? Ten years after his mysterious death, his writings, once burnt by the US FDA, become an important source of inspiration for a ’68 generation in revolt. Written by Novotny & Novotny
Marta’s case is particularly significant because it breaks many stereotypes about gender violence. For one she never suffered physical abuse before the attempted murder and she does not come from modest or marginal family. As she says: ‘There is no profile for battered women and it can touch anyone.’ She also is a strong woman and a fighter who is not afraid to criticize the ineffectiveness of institutions. For me as a man was also very important to approach the male and try to find out what happens inside a violent man and what leads him to violence. In this sense i found the work of the therapist Harald Burgauner, who is one of the most prestigious specialists in Austria, of particular interest.
Wheel of Time is Werner Herzog’s photographed look at the largest Buddhist ritual in Bodh Gaya, India.
Compelled by the inheritance of a mysterious box of letters, American aesthete Felix Pfeifle begins the journey of a lifetime to reach the source of the correspondence: the last heir of the Holy Roman Emperors, aging Archduke Otto von Habsburg. The quest takes Felix across America , over the Atlantic and beyond.
In order to escape her isolation, wheelchair-bound Christine makes a life changing journey to Lourdes, the iconic site of pilgrimage in the Pyrenees Mountains.
A minimalist interview-film, dealing with one of the most disturbing life-stories from the twentieth Century. An oral history about abuse, resistance and survival.
FOREIGNERS OUT! SCHLINGENSIEFS CONTAINER is a thrilling, insightful, funny chronicle and reflection of one of he biggest public pranks and acts of art terrorism ever committed. Austria 2000: Right after the FPÖ under Jörg Haider had become part of the government, the first time an extreme right wing party became state officials after WW2, infamous German shock director Christoph Schlingensief showed a very unique form of protest. Realising public xenophobia and the new hate politics in the most drastic ways possible, he installed a public concentration camp right in the middle of Vienna’s touristic heart, right beside the picturesque opera where hundreds of tourists and locals pass by daily. And it was no concentration camp you had ever feared to return from the old times, but one that cynically reflected our new multimedia culture. Satirising reality TV shows, “Big Brother” especially, a dozen asylum seekers were surveilled by a multitude of cameras, could be fed and watched by.
“I’ve always played Gypsy Music, that’s what my father taught me. But I would like to know where this music is from”. Willing to discover the roots of Gypsy Music, famous Austrian guitarist Harri Stojka goes on a journey to Rajasthan, India, to meet local musicians and play with them. There, he encounters several artists using the most original instruments, and always eager to share the joy of playing. More important, he realizes that the Gypsy spirit is something that brings them together. After all, they speak the same language: the language of music.
The great successes and tragedies in the life and work of Hans Kammerlander, the renowned mountaineer.
As a survivor of WWII, which will mark his life and work permanently, Hermann Nitsch is considered one of the most important contemporary artists in the world while his work continues to generate conflicting reactions for the use …
Discover the incredible story of a group of dedicated people working to protect one of the planet’s last refuges for Africa’s iconic wildlife.
Three young female activists in Uganda, Hong Kong and Chile in a united front for the future, in an inflamed film by a merely 21-year-old filmmaker.
Against the tumultuous backdrop of Iran’s 1953 CIA-backed coup d’état, the destinies of four women converge in a beautiful orchard garden, where they find independence, solace and companionship.
A young girl becomes Alice in dreamland. Wild dreams and nightmares about vampirism, death, obsessions and other bizarre things.
Filmmaker Ulrich Seidl explores of the dark underside of the human psyche by entering Austrian basements fitted out as private domains for secrets and fetishes.
A hilarious introduction, using as examples some of the best films ever made, to some of Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst Slavoj Žižek’s most exciting ideas on personal subjectivity, fantasy and reality, desire and sexuality.
First barns burn, then an old house burns. A fire brigade goes around. A corpse burned beyond recognition is found in the old house. Intention or amazing coincidence? Franzi Heilmayr and Martin Merana believe in coincidence – until the evidence suddenly points in a completely different direction. And deadly danger still emanates from there.
In 1818, when Joseph Mohr is assigned to be the new assistant priest in Oberndorf, a small Austrian town near Salzburg, the young man is full of ideas and ideals. His passion to bring the church closer to the common people sets him on a collision course with his new superior, Father Nostler. When Mohr organizes a church choir that includes outcasts from the local tavern and performs in German instead of Latin, Nostler threatens him with disciplinary action. Their relationship further deteriorates when Maria a regular tavern patron, surprisingly joins the performance of the all-male church choir. As Mohr’s initial successes start to crumble and his efforts backfire on him, he loses all hope and faces a trial of faith. The night before Christmas, Mohr has to decide if he will accept defeat and leave Oberndorf or embrace the true significance of the Holy Night.
A propulsively jittering journey through the cinematic imaginary using glitchy found footage and jacked-up cyber sounds, Get Ready hits the highway hard and takes us with it. A car crash? An escape? This turbo-charged condensation of cinematic moods and tropes makes much of its tiny run-time.
The world’s farmland is at risk. Demand for land has soared as investors look for places to grow food for export, grow crops for biofuel or simply buy up land for profit. The film gives an inside look into the world of investors in the international agricultural-business and shows the consequences for families kicked off their land. Land Grabbing shows how “colonialism 2.0” works.
Shadows of Light combines the loud and soft tones of life. The centerpiece is an Austrian mountain pasture where the summer solstice is celebrated with international artists and where tradition and zeitgeist are not contradictory.
1960’s Siegheilkirchen, a small town in the Austrian hinterland is steeped in reactionary and ultra-Catholic attitudes. The son of a hard-working innkeeper and his wife, called Snotty Boy by all and sundry, is at odds with the narrow-minded confines of his home town. But his unstoppable talent for drawing gives him an outlet for his discontent.
Motorbike Dreaming is an extreme cultural adventure following two young Aussie adventurers and their fiancées giving wings to their crazy idea to be the first to fly microlights 5,000 km across Australia, with an award-winning filmmaker trying to keep up.
Vienna’s Prater is an amusement park and a desire machine. No mechanical invention, no novel idea or sensational innovation could escape incorporation into the Prater. The diverse story-telling in Ulrike Ottinger’s film “Prater” transforms this place of sensations into a modern cinema of attractions. The Prater’s history from the beginning to the present is told by its protagonists and those who have documented it, including contemporary cinematic images of the Prater, interviews with carnies, commentary by Austrians and visitors from abroad, film quotes, and photographic and written documentary materials. The meaning of the Prater, its status as a place of technological innovation, and its role as a cultural medium are reflected in texts by Elfriede Jelinek, Josef von Sternberg, Erich Kästner and Elias Canetti, as well as in music devoted to this amusement venue throughout the course of its history.
A documentary about the race for the fastest connection and the most powerful algorithm in the high speed world of automated trading.
Fei works illegally as a hustler in order to support his family, yet when he realizes they are willing to accept his money but not his way of life, there is a major breakdown in their relations. Through his relationship to the headstrong Long, Fei seems able to find a new lease on life, but then he encounters Xiaolai, the love of his youth, who confronts him with the guilt of his repressed past.
Soft boys by day, kings by night. The film follows a group of young Bulgarian Roma who come to Vienna looking for freedom and a quick buck. They sell their bodies as if that’s all they had. What comforts them, so far from home, is the feeling of being together. But the nights are long and unpredictable.
Daniela is unsure about what to do next and where to live. Mia is finishing a master’s degree that she spontaneously started. Along with Natascha, another friend thinking of moving to Vienna, they wander around and talk.
“I am from Austria” is a jukebox musical consisting of the songs by the Austrian songwriter Rainhard Fendrich. The musical premiered in September 2017 in Raimund Theater in Vienna. The plot circles around Emma Carter, a Hollywood star with Austrian roots, who who returns to her native country for the Vienna Opera Ball and to promote her new movie.
An all-girl Catholic boarding school near Vienna for the wealthy Austrian elite and their children. The school is thriving, but faith is declining and the upper floors are deserted. The head of the institution, a young energetic nun, fights with ardor against this decline. Martha, 12, one of the nun’s favorite pupils, is a devoted girl who wishes to expiate the sins of the world. Encouraged by the nun, she is given a penance belt and taken to the abandoned upper floor.
Handmade utopias – a filmic search for the worldwide phenomenon of the micronation movement. Do-it-yourself states that have distanced themselves from the economic and political mainstreaming of globalization. A road movie covering land, water and the wildest realms of the imagination. Simultaneously creative documentary and pulsating cultural portrait, the film traces a new “unplugged” generation – their motives, their anxieties and their dreams.
A film within a film, “Looking for Oum Kulthum” is the plight of an Iranian woman artist/filmmaker living in exile, as she embarks on capturing the life and art of the legendary female singer of the Arab world, Oum Kulthum. Through her difficult journey, not unlike her heroine’s, she has to face the struggles, sacrifices and the price that a woman has to pay if she dares to cross the lines of a conservative male dominated society.
Mau follows the unlikely story of design visionary Bruce Mau and his ever-optimistic push for massive change.
A housemaid, working in an exclusive gated community in the outskirts of Buenos Aires, embarks on a journey of sexual and mental liberation in a nudist swinger-club boarding the high security walls.
Isaac’s son Jacob deprives his brother Esau of his birthright and has to flee for his life. He finds shelter with his uncle Laban, but is himself deceived. Finally, Jacob has to face both his uncle and brother.
Mario, a young dancer living in a small village has to face the loss of his beloved best friend Lenz, victim of an attack in a gay club.
Mamo, an old and legendary Kurdish musician living in Iran, plans to give one final concert in Iraqi Kurdistan. After seven months of trying to get a permit and rounding up his ten sons, he sets out for the long and troublesome journey in a derelict bus, denying a recurring vision of his own death at half moon. Halfway the party halts at a small village to pick up female singer Hesho, which will only add to the difficulty of the undertaking, as it is forbidden for Iranian women to sing in public, let alone in the company of men. But Mamo is determined to carry through, if not for the gullible antics of the bus driver.
A jealous musician kills his wife and frames a cab driver.
Stella, grows up in Berlin during the rule of the Nazi regime. She dreams of a career as a jazz singer, despite all the repressive measures she is forced to go into hiding with her parents in 1944, her life turns into a culpable tragedy.
