Discoveries from Austria World Cinema

Ever since Rappelkopf was once deceived by a con man, he has become the epitome of a suspicious, stubborn misanthrope and a family nuisance. His wife and daughter, as well as his servants, suffer from his bad moods, accusations, and insinuations. The kind, alpine mountain spirit Astragalus, the King of the Alps, wants to rescue the grumpy man from his constant discontent and misanthropy. He promises to remedy his situation and makes Rappelkopf an offer he cannot refuse: he is to become his alter ego, to slip into another, better form. In the guise of his brother-in-law, the tyrant is to visit his family to convince himself of their loyalty and love. The King of the Alps, in turn, wants to appear as Rappelkopf, the living mirror of the true family despot, in order to morally purify him through self-knowledge.

Nicole is a young librarian who writes romantic poetry. A successful new erotic novel, gives her the idea to secretly write a daring play, only about sex.

Simon Granderath has been found dead in his appartment. His only daughter, Monika Besse, who lives in Luxembourg, arrives to arrange the funeral and settle his estate. She wishes to get back to Luxembourg and to her normal life as quickly as possible. However, she quickly realizes that in fact, she hardly knew her father, and tries to trace the various stages and encounters that made up his life. Much later, she realizes that the search for the identity of her father has actually become a search of her own identity – though still she believes she can get closer to her father after his death.

A man kills women because he was not loved by his mother and in his puberty he was dismissed by girls as sexually unattractive. And whenever he meets women now, he just cannot control himself.

A staged TV portrait of the Austrian cartoonist Gerhard Haderer; and first collaboration with Maria Hofstätter.

A woman discovers that her husband is having an affair. She demands a divorce, her husband does not agree to it. She decides to sleep with ten men, then her husband will surely divorce her.

Out of power politics, offended vanity and a desire for revenge, Hohenstaufen Emperor Henry VI and the King of France became accomplices in an unheard-of act: the hostage-taking of the English King Richard the Lionheart. It was the kidnapping of the century.

Elizabeth T. Spira accompanies train passengers from Vienna – Bratislava for one of her famous Alltagsgeschichten

We accompany the 90-year-old filmmaker Alexander Hammid on a stroll through New York, wandering with him through the outer and inner landscapes of his world. The observation of details takes on a meditative character.

Two strangers have a strong impact on a young man who's spending some time with his family in this drama from Germany. Seventeen-year-old Anton has been struggling to make sense of his life since his father committed suicide when Anton was attending boarding school. Anton's mother, Luiza, wants to mend her strained relationship with her son and introduce him to her boyfriend, Paul, so she arranges for them to take a vacation together.

After her husband's death, Kate Zeller had to sell the farm and move with her four children from the countryside to Vienna. There she opened a small laundry and raised her children. When they grew up, they thought they no longer needed their mother. But it turns out that they still need her...

Memorable moments from the life of the Catholic priest and naturopath from Wörishofen (1821-1897). The film depicts the successes of his hydrotherapy methods, his hostility from conventional medicine, and his rehabilitation by Pope Leo XIII.

Policewoman Tilda is in the dark, and her only connection to the outside world is her cell phone. She contacts her stepson, gravedigger Max Broll, and tells him that she has been buried in a box. According to Tilda, the perpetrator is Leopold Wagner, the "child maker," whom she put behind bars years ago. However, since Wagner is still in prison, this can't be true.

Not every fairytale starts with the usual formula of “Once upon a time…”. However, all fairytales touch us with the power of their inherent fantasy. They blend the beautiful and the eerie into a magical world between dreams and reality. Hollywood and fairytales have developed a very special friendship that - this year - presents us with a fantastic concert experience in the land of mythical creatures.

A bar full of people talking about Volker Spengler. HIGHFALUTIN is an attempt to create such a utopia, a simple "what if."

For a job, Alina has to accept longer working hours and long business trips. The single mother has to reorganize her everyday life with her daughter Lilia and asks her ex-boyfriend Jarek to teach her the violin lessons. While Lilia finds it difficult to come to terms with the new situation, Jarek soon finds pleasure in contacting violin teacher Clara and her sons - much to the dismay of Clara's husband. When Lilia gets the chance to change to another teacher as a master student, the contact with Clara breaks off. Until Jarek and Clara meet again by chance a few months later.

John Gruber is in his mid thirties, an egocentric, living life in the fast lane and sparing no expense. But all of a sudden he is thrown off track by a cancer diagnosis and by the person who unwillingly delivers the news: Sarah, a DJane from Berlin, who is not his type at all. Feelings just aren’t Gruber’s cup of tea and now, without having asked for them, he has more than ever before…

Enis, in his late 20s and of Turkish background, must pay off a huge debt to save his video store. With help from an Asian amateur hacker, he contacts a mysterious businessman on the darknet. The businessman offers a bizarre deal. If they prevent the Kazakh president's state visit on Christmas Eve, he'll pay off the debt. Enis and his ally see only one option: they enlist a notorious skinhead to carry out the mission.

His scars form the starting point of her research trip to track down the young people crushed by the military putsch of September 12th, 1980. The dream of Turkish democracy in pieces, the way to an authoritarian regime and political Islam already paved.

Mr. Polgár is a provincial paper dealer. His sons, Viktor and Feri, are managers in a big factory in the capital, spending their money lavishly, living their lives in a careless, irresponsible way. Viktor is to marry a baroness and feels rather too uneasy about his father's small business. He persuades his old man into selling the business he had so long cherished and to move to their place in Pest.

Weaves together the story of a wife who remains faithful despite being unhappy, with attempts at spying on German industrial facilities in Africa.

Briton Robert Clayton's business flourished and when his son Donald reached the right age he became a partner. The Claytons have found irreplaceable help and a friend in the board of directors and authorized signatory Josef Chwostik. But gradually the authorized signatory is drawn into the private life of father and son. An orderly world - or so it seems. You make a career, maintain business relationships, win or lose a lover - and don't want to see the cracks and voids in the foundation of society.

Karl, a 70-year-old Austrian astronomer, is at a crossroads in life and work. After a conference in Greece, he decides not to return home and heads for a small island in hopes of finding a sky dark enough to reconnect with the stars.

Until now, spoiled Vicky has always got through life by relying on the name of her father, who is an influential winegrower. After losing her job at an advertising agency and no longer receiving any money from her father, she desperately looks for a new goal. She wants to set up a women's curling team in Eisenstadt and win against the Kitzbühel state champions so that Eisenstadt becomes the venue for the Women's Curling World Championships.

Two men who do not know each other: Ertan, a 35-year-old ex-convict who is trying to make amends for his past actions, and Mikail, a teenager drug dealer and aspiring musician. However, both will have to face the same reality.

It is the world’s most mysterious manuscript. A book, written by an unknown author, illustrated with pictures that are as bizarre as they are puzzling — and written in a language that even the best cryptographers have been unable to decode. No wonder that this script even has a part in Dan Brown’s latest bestseller “The Lost Symbol”.

When spoiled heir Boyd Grayson is left handless after an accident, his domineering mother Jacqueline spares no expense rebuilding him with radical new tech: prosthetic hands powered by his subconscious. Only trouble is, Boyd's subconscious is anything but pristine!

"It had to be me."

Tom and Mark are a close-knit rope team. While Mark dreams of Nanga Parbat, Tom furnishes the new house with his girlfriend Franziska. Tom has a serious accident on a particularly challenging route. Not only do Tom and Franziska have to rethink their life plans, but Mark also has to face a new reality. A story about friendship, guilt and responsibility.

A documentary. David Sieveking takes the advice of his idol, David Lynch and tries out Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's transcendental meditation technique.

The Viennese cab driver Maggy has all kinds of problems, not least monetary ones. But suddenly Maggy's financial problems could solve all by themselves when Juliette Koons, who has been reported missing, gets into her cab with a heavy suitcase.

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.

One day, Nina confesses to her boyfriend Mick, that she never has had an orgasm. Comedy about the problems of relationship and sexuality in a parody of the sex enlightenment and soft sex genre.

The semi-documentary film contains fictional scenes as well as archive footage of the life and work of the Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Franz König (1905–2004).

Leo, a young filmmaker, quarrels with the screenplay author about the explosive plot, has problems with his girlfriend Katrin, and to top it all, the department of education doesn't want to subsidize his film although the television people are interested in it. In other words, a lot of problems for Leo. An influential politician who thinks he has recognized himself in the film story is responsible for it all.

American Ocelot tells the story of one of the most endangered and beautiful wild cats in the United States — a species so elusive that high-quality images and video have never been captured until now. With fewer than 100 individuals remaining in the US, the ocelot is critically endangered, genetically isolated, and only exists in Texas.

German television movie based on the play by Marc Camoletti.

Else is the pretty daughter of a Viennese lawyer. The young lady has been invited by her aunt to spend a few days on a summer holiday in San Martino. There she receives an express letter from her mother requesting her to ask the wealthy art dealer Dorsday for a much-needed loan. Her father is facing bankruptcy due to embezzlement. Else approaches Dorsday and describes the difficult family situation. Dorsday is willing to lend the necessary money, but stipulates that Else must expose herself to him naked for a quarter of an hour. Else reacts indignantly to this request, but over the course of the evening realizes the dilemma she faces. Caught between unconditional loyalty to her father and a strong longing for autonomy and self-determined femininity, she cannot commit to either alternative.

In September 1943, 17-year-old Stanisław Zalewski was arrested in Warsaw as a member of a Polish resistance group and taken to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp for labour service. From there, he was sent to Mauthausen and finally to the Gusen camp, where the prisoners were forced to work for the German armaments industry under inhumane conditions. For a long time, Stanisław Zalewski, like many other victims of Nazi terror, remained silent about his painful experiences. It was only after forty years that he began to talk about it, at events, memorial services, and in schools, and he continues to do so to this day, even at the age of 99. Now, for the first time, he tells his stirring life story in a film as a deeply impressive ‘ambassador of remembrance’.

A suitcase explores Vienna's suburbia and finds giant soap bubbles. It befriends the soap bubble girl. They create a show together and have a suitcase-child.

Nine-year-old Gina yearns for the warmth of a real family, but her mother Gitte is struggling to cope with the demands of single parenthood and an impending fourth child. Seeking refuge in excessive parties and alcohol, Gitte risks losing the one thing that keeps her going: her children. As Gina fights against the backdrop of generational poverty, neglect, and lovelessness, she refuses to accept that her fate is predetermined by her birthplace. This is a three-generation family portrait told through the eyes of a determined nine-year-old girl, who is determined to break the cycle and find stability and hope amidst the challenges of her upbringing.

Two residents of Vienna, both in their mid 30s, have successful careers, they are happily single and want to remain so. When Mina breaks through the roof of Jakob's apartment, havoc is the result.

A taxi driver kicks a homeless woman out of his car. It'll be a long night until he can make amends.

After three years of intensive therapy, 37-year-old prison psychotherapist Michael Trenk is convinced that his patient Cornelia Steinweg is ready for freedom again. Despite objections from his colleagues, he prevails and secures her early release. While Trenk has long since moved on to new tasks, he realizes that Steinweg constantly seeks contact with him, needing him as her only contact in freedom, even to the point of abuse: Trenk realizes that he was wrong. His professional career, the life of his child, and his wife are at stake.

Schönbrunn is a world of marvels and mystery, of public glamour and curious secrets. The wealth of its building and landscape architecture, the grand views and hidden details, the wildlife, tamed nature as well as its past and present human population supply more stories and images than even the most insatiable camera can record.Schönbrunn in the protean succession of the seasons, of light and shadow, day and night is presented by Sir Peter Ustinov and was broadcasted in the “ORF-UNIVERSUM”-series for the 250th anniversary of the Schönbrunn Zoo.

Danny and Li Wei, two ten-year-old boys from Salzburg, travel to China, where, with Mozart's help, they rescue an old shadow play from the claws of a hotel chain shark.

The Berghotel Edelweiss, located amidst a picture-book landscape, is a traditional family business. To meet growing demands, Max Höllerer takes out a loan to expand the property. Unfortunately, he has speculated. The bank sells the house, but secretly plans to make a large spa hotel out of it. The attractive Sarah Sand is scheduled on Höllerer to make him the post of managing director tasty.

Antonio Cotroneo, a man in his fifties; in his Calabrian hometown everybody calls him Totó. For many decades he has been living in his chosen exile. Having subsequently married an Austrian woman and fathered four sons, the graduate political scientist earns his money as an usher at Vienna Konzerthaus.

A long time ago, the so-called "Google Wars" engulfed the whole world in a deadly chain reaction. Civilization came to a grinding halt. But there is still hope. This is the story of a new beginning...

Consul Keyser, a factory owner, is vacationing with his daughter Marion on a Mediterranean island, hoping to bring her together with his assistant Dr. Thomas Steffen. On this island, however, the passionate fisherman Michael Lutz and his somewhat neglected admirer Barbara Holstein already spend their vacations.Michael asks the singer Bob Stuart, together with his band in their ghost costumes to drive away the annoying newcomers again. However, it no longer comes to this, because on behalf of Gina, the wife of the local police chief, real gangsters appear with the tourists and finally flee with their dinghy. So now the vacationers have to rely on each other willy-nilly, and the couples finally find each other.

Auctioneer Clara wants to move from Carinthia to London with her yuppie friend Robert.