Discoveries from Austria World Cinema

The story of Jack Unterweger, one of the most disturbing serial killers in the German-speaking world narrated from the point of view of his ex-girlfriend Bianca Mrak.

The plot adheres closely to the original novel, revolves around wealthy Maxim DeWinter, his naïve new wife, and Mrs. Danvers, the manipulative housekeeper of DeWinter's Cornish estate Manderley. Mrs. Danvers resents the new wife's intrusion and persuades the new wife that she is an unworthy replacement for the first Mrs. DeWinter, the glamorous and mysterious Rebecca, who perished in a drowning accident. The new Mrs. DeWinter struggles to find her identity and take control of her life among the shadows left by Rebecca.

Marcus Kanter from Vienna/Austria has created this short, yet very interesting video-documentary in 1994-1995 about the iconic free-tekkno collective Spiral Tribe from the UK.

The Wiener Staatsballett performs Rudolf Nureyev's world-famous choreography of "The Nutcracker." Recorded live at the Vienna State Opera, 7 October 2012.

A boy is searching for the soul of his father

"Lights of the Abyss". Anita Berber enchants men and women as the seductive goddess Astarte.

Autobiographical notes about bringing up children. A birth, the bite in the umbilical cord, a baby between sheets of music. Mimi fiddles educationally on a violin without strings, offers her breast and enjoys the little king with an improvised hysterical performance, and suddenly starts with Dadaistic oracles, letting the blead dance and carrying the child out into big wide world.

Eva, a successful publicity executive, has weight problems. In spite of diets and starvation cures she is overcome frequently by attacks of compulsive eating so that all resolutions and efforts to reduce weight are of no avail. She becomes more and more frustrated. Her new boyfriend Thomas does his best to pep her up but it doesn't help her self esteem. Finally, after she ditches her date with Thomas because she can't find the right dress to wear, she flies into a rage and -in an act of self-liberation- throws her clothes and scale through a closed window.

Director Wolfgang Lesowsky's captivating biopic of the Gustav Mahler stars Reinhard Hauser as the passionate conductor-composer whose drive for greatness and love of music were rivaled only by his insatiable desire for beautiful women. Through biographical narration and dramatic reenactments, Lesowsky paints a stylish portrait of the mercurial genius, widely regarded as one of the most important composers of the late romantic era.

Anna Veith speaks more openly than ever in the documentary about ups and downs – gives the viewer insights into a personality that was often only seen as an attractive athlete and winning machine from the outside.

The portrait of an 87 year old woman who has been writing poems for 3 years. The seven thousand poems she wrote in this short period show her strength and her will to live.

This portrait of a remarkable woman and her unusual environment seems to have a very profound effect on nearly everyone who sees it. The film further strengthens the reputation of veteran documentarian Schreiner, who's quietly and steadily established himself among Europe's most respected practitioners of non-fiction cinema. But the film is by no means an example of an ‘auteur’ imposing his individual vision upon the world. Instead it's a remarkable example of intense collaboration between artist and subject, one so close that such traditional distinctions and labels seem inappropriate.

After the death of the legendary trade unionist and red veteran Peppi Schober, his bereaved family members, a steadfast father and his ideology-free son, finally clear the table and settle accounts: with fifty years of political, contemporary and family history, with ideologies, illusions - and above all with each other.

What is a Schützenfest (shooting festival) and what is it for? A small German town breaks out the bunting to welcome the arrival of brass bands, hats and rifles, as the town's men march as one towards the throne. A quirky ethnographic exploration of the rituals of a bygone era.

In beautiful pictures and few words, the longing of two outsiders for a different, better life is told.

Vladimir Horowitz's piano recital in 1987 at the Musikvereinssaal in Vienna.

A little leopard born without spots faces the challenge of fitting in. In the end he learns to accept himself just the way he is.

The rock paintings of the Australian aborigines are among the oldest evidence of human culture. But the unique cultural heritage of the Aborigines is in danger of being lost forever. The paintings, some of which are over 40,000 years old, are severely affected by weathering and algae infestation.

The ServusTV documentary accompanies Dujmovits on her way back to the top of the world. A path that will be crowned with a World Cup medal and participation at the Olympics in Beijing. Dujmovits tells her story more personally than ever – about a life full of triumphs and a great tragedy.

Phaidros is based on Plato's eponymous dialogue and plays in an LBQT+ milieu of a present-day metropolis. The actor Emil is meant to embody the character of the poet Phaedrus in a battle of words with Werner Maria, who slips into the role of Socrates. When the borders between friendship and sexual initiation soon blur beyond the events on stage, too, the shrill, carnivalesque scenario turns into grotesque love triangles and quadrangles, which ultimately even cause a casualty.

Fragmented stories about the big city, loneliness and the need to communicate.

The film shows life on Austrian farms in an unvarnished and unemotional way. As diverse as the farmers shown are, from organic farmers to conventional agricultural engineers, their message is unanimous: things cannot go on like this. Something is wrong. It shows how economic policy and society are increasingly capitulating to industry. The pictures are not rosy, but there are moments of hope.

Photographer Niki List's debut film observes Vienna's bizarre youth scene. Malaria is the name of a small café that serves as a meeting place for a wide variety of people who identify with various social groups. Anything goes in the café. List ironically describes the young people of the so-called No Future Generation, discussing their communication behavior and the emptiness and aimlessness that define this generation. A Viennese New Wave film, Malaria was lauded as a "documentary masterpiece" and awarded the Max Ophüls Prize.

A man in civil clothes, and three men in army uniforms are inspecting seven women to be recruited.

The film shows how strong women took up the fight against social injustice and for their own rights and how the uprising of 1525 changed people's lives.

This hyper-intersectional film is an amalgam of sci-fi creature-flick, campy music video, grotesque comedy, agitprop flick against heterocentric research as well as (soft-)pornographic subversive statement. "FUDLIAKS! Tear the sexes apart!" is set in an undefined present, in a mysterious laboratory: the Institute for Gender Normalization. The research subject of this neo-conservative think tank: the scientific underpinnings of conventional heteronormative bodies and biologically binary genders. But a new research series turns all that on its head!

After the death of his parents Hans, 16, provides for his four brothers and his grandmother. He works as a courier for his uncle, who sells counterfeit diamonds to wealthy clients with plenty of illicit funds. Hans fights like Robin Hood against the establishment and the greed of the rich, and for justice for the poor.

Marc Adrian´s FILMBLOCK 0 paces out the foundations of a ritual of self-realization. With its matte surfaces (colorful leader) and easily visible splices – before the production of a negative, the film fell apart at the taped places with every presentation – Black Movie I stands at the beginning of this development, while Black Movie II with its gleaming, painstakingly made colors and sparklingly clean “cuts” marks the conclusion. Both films by themselves do not tell us anything. They are colors in space and time and nothing more, experiences of different materialities. Together, considering the three films that come between them, they tell the tale of the acquisition of a confidence and strength in craftsmanship, and with this a deeper understanding of the medium – a clarity.

The melancholy emanating from Caspar David Friedrich painting lonely in the snow becomes grotesque when he turns into a blood-sucking dracula who knows how to escape the vigilance of the lord of the castle and get at his victims.

Early experimental short film by Herbert Holba.

One-of-a-kind film, photographs and audio recordings were found in a private collection in Prague. This material documents life in the Theresienstadt concentration camp from the perspective of a woman who would now be 124 years old.

Night-time, high-tech surveillance video uses circling camera to depict a run-of-the-mill contemporary business park. All is however not what it seems. The mechanical eye penetrates the initial security level unmasking the camouflage tactics of today's arms industry using its own tools.

In December 1997 the Schengen Agreement came into effect, as a result of which Austrias eastern border became the outer border of the EU. The securing of this border was called Operation Limes by the Ministry of the Interior, presumably after the ancient Roman limes which divided the continent...

14-year-old MAX goes with his father WOLFGANG (45) and his friends on a camping trip in the woods. The two haven´t seen each other since the separation of the parents a few months ago and experience a weekend of rapprochement with beer, men´s talk and masculinity rites. Soon, however, the actual idyll of the trip becomes more and more frightening and the renewed bond between Max and Wolfgang is put to the test.

During the Cold War, many of those who tried to flee westward across the dangerous and blurred line separating communist Czechoslovakia from freedom were gunned down: the story of Europe's deadliest border.

The Austrian architect Hans Hollein belongs to the world elite of architects since his candle shop Retti in Vienna (1965). His museum in Mönchengladbach (1982) revolutionized museum architecture in our century, and his Haas-Haus (1990) in Vienna became the most disputed post-war building in Vienna.

During the organization of their mother’s funeral, two estranged sisters with completely different personalities are forced to face each other once again. They will have to confront their differences, as well as their relationship.

Inspired by Arthur Schnitzler’s scandalous drama Reigen and Chantal Akerman’s famous film Tout en Nuit, the viewer witnesses a modern cycle of love. The film portrays fleeting moments of happiness and disappointment: a young woman talks about her non-binary existence. We observe another woman who, after long years of marriage, finally leaves her home to embark on her first romantic adventure in a hotel room with a “blind date”. This is followed by a drunken drive home for a couple, whose nighttime outing ends in a dark landscape. To be continued!

The show opens in the "world of the dead", where Luigi Lucheni is being interrogated by a Judge as to why he has murdered the Empress Elisabeth. Lucheni claims that he did no more than what Elisabeth herself wanted, since all her life Elisabeth has been in love with Death himself – and vice versa. As his witnesses, Lucheni brings back the dead aristocracy of the bygone era and takes us to the past, where he serves as a sarcastic narrator of the events that lead to the transformation of the sweet and innocent Sisi to the revered and infamous Elisabeth, Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary, and her decline through later years until her assassination.

An avant-garde sonic and visual reediting of a short clip from the classic 1962 film "To Kill a Mockingbird".

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 female vampire from the planet Arus tries to vampirize the descendants of Dr. Fun Helsing. With her poisoned olive oil she transforms some teenagers into sex maniac vampires, over whom the crucifix has no power! Only Andrej Tarkowski videos make them shrink back in agony! The vampire hunters soon find themselves "sucked" into a whirlpool of lust and passion...

Shortly before his wedding, Manfred, a young farmer, travels to Vienna to look for a friend who owes him 80,000 shillings. During the course of a most unusual and succinctly comic odyssey he meets Gina, a girl from Italy. An Austrian road movie containing a Babel of languages.

A surreal montage of science fiction films about the public image oft he robot, collected for the exhibition "Robot Dreams" at the Kunsthaus Graz and the Museum Tinguely, Basel.

Gloria is trying to find herself a man. With the help of a lonely-hearts agent she meets several candidates but the choice is easy.