Discoveries from Austria World Cinema

After her father unexpectedly loses his job, 16 year-old Jessica feels the need to do something - something drastic. Her whole life begins to rearrange itself. The "good life" doesn't seem to matter anymore.

Discarded takes from advertising films are presented almost untouched, as documents that unwittingly offer valuable and humorous insights into the human condition.

Happy, an Indian refugee, is facing deportation. His dream of a successful life in Austria hasn't come true. What keeps him in the country, however, is his Austrian daughter Maya, from whom he would otherwise be permanently separated. In order to qualify for residency and custody rights, he gives up his job as a newspaper vendor and begins working as a food delivery driver. But one moment of carelessness, and the house of cards collapses.

Experimental documentary film about the behavior and culture of the Indians in the American southwest and about the situation of the white artist in (Austrian) society.

A young man is standing in a hospital room inhabited by his mentally ill mother. She is asleep; instead of waking her, he leaves the room. In search of distraction, he drifts through day and night. He embarks on a series of events that bring light into his fears, his identity conflicts, and his desire for a sense of belonging in this world.

THE ELECTION CAMPAIGNERS tries to analyse the phenomenon of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ). The party’s great success is generally regarded as a result of its leader’s demonic charisma. But this film doesn’t focus on Jörg Haider. Instead it gives a face to the people who make Haider’s election victories possible, taking a clear stance, yet refraining from commentary or judgement. It is up to the viewers to draw their own conclusions.

A Materialaktion (an art performance/happening in which objects are used to create an art piece) by Viennese Aktionist Otto Muehl. The setting is a solemn Christmas celebration.

This release captures a performance of the Leoš Janáček opera Katia Kabanova recorded at the Salzburg Festival in 1998.

CLEANING AND CLEANSING tells of the glamor and misery of hygiene. Without resorting to interviews or explanatory off-camera commentary, it stages its subject in a way that can be experienced by the senses. In doing so, it follows an analytical approach that thematizes hygiene as an order of the „healthy“ and the „harmful“, which is reflected in institutions, architectures and production processes and regulates human behavior. The filmthus raises a topic that has been central to our society since the beginning of modernity: the optimization and improvement of life, which – if pursued with too much commitment and carelessly – can quickly turn against itself.

Christof Columbus succeeds to convince Queen Isabel of Spain to equip him to sail accross the Atlantic. This and what happens to the Spaniards when they meet the indigenous people is shown in this film shot on the island of La Gomera.

Approximately half a million vagabonds were roaming Austria and Germany in the late 1920s. The film addresses their social exclusion and depicts the harsh reality of living on the fringes of society.

‘The Bridge’ follows a young woman who hears a mysterious phone ringing in the forest and follows it into a surreal world, where inspiration resides but cannot manifest. It is a meditation on the creative act as a passage between fantasy and reality; a concept I was very much in touch with throughout the process of manifesting this film.

Mr. Ham decides to have his heart removed to free himself from his complicated emotions. The doctor assures him that, in this day and age, this procedure no longer poses a problem.

Based on Samuel R. Delany’s short novel ‘Aye, and Gomorrah...’, where the sci-fi premise of radiation-resistant state-neutered space travellers allows the author to explore androgyny, sexual identity, etc. Hammel uses Delany’s story to create a spookily beautiful world where asexual bodies live in the contradiction between their unarousable loneliness and desire for intimacy and contact.

A surf trip from L.A. to Costa Rica is a classic free ride, executed by generations of surfers since the 1960's. When five landlocked Austrians get on that very road, it becomes a different thing: a comedy, a philosophical diversion, an investigation of the myth of the surfer dude itself.

“An action is causally connected if it cannot be thought away without the specific outcome ceasing to exist,” says Eva, a young prosecutor, quoting the cold logic of law texts. How does it apply to your life? Drifting in the city from one encounter to another, Eva confronts all the images of romantic and parental love that society has established as the status quo.

The story staged, then, is that of young Andreas Harmer (played by Oskar Marion), at first unemployed and then, thanks to the help of his sister, who works as a nanny at the home of councillor Othmar Valentin (Arthur von Duniecki), a police apprentice. The man soon finds himself having to deal with a couple of forgers (Attila Hörbiger and Kurt Doehn), who live in the basement of Valentin’s building and who, uneasy because of the presence of a policeman who frequently visits the house, will do anything to drive the man away, even organising the kidnapping of Valentin’s little daughter.

The poor, out-of-town dairymaid Liesl and the wealthy landowner Martin are in love. The village community rejects Liesl. Moreover, a wealthy innkeeper's daughter has her eye on Martin.

Lea and Tom are trapped in a toxic relationship and seek a quick solution through a nature trip guided by a shaman. But as they confront their past and present, they are plunged into a deeper crisis, challenging their beliefs and stereotypes.

After discovering her abusive ex-stepfather is invited to her mother's 50th birthday party, Vanessa exposes his past atrocities with the help of a homemade videotape. Amidst the chaos of the family celebration, Vanessa and her estranged mother find an unexpected way to reconnect and ensure that justice is served for Vanessa's ex-stepfather.

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.

One of Valie Export’s first films is a brief and matter-of-fact treatment of lust. The question of whether the man and woman actually had sexual intercourse and who was responsible for the woman´s orgasm remains open.

High-school students Mia and Esther are obsessed with columbine-shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. They share the shooter´s hatred against their own social environment and are determined to commit a school shooting themselves. The two outlaws have planned out every detail in their fantasies and train shooting in an abandoned quarry. Mia is struggling to hide her doubts, but will she stand tall before her friend?

A pyramid, by no means static, is instead brought to ever-increasing movement by the use of camera motion, cuts and fades. The cinematic illusion jumbles the individual elements and unites them in a symbolic sketch of Adolf Loos' dynamic thought processes. A High Speed Journey through the spinal cord of this revolutionary architect.

A documentary on one of the world’s most exciting string quartets – the Quatuor Ébène – draws viewers into the musicians’ struggle with interpretational details, with colleague-friends – and with themselves.

Claudia makes Katrin to work for her provider for Claudia's material security and to leave the "shitty work outside". They are both prostitutes. Katrin learns that the price for being independent is high and goes with physical destruction.

a silent movie by Robert Wiene

A summer in Vienna. At a school’s out party, teenagers Ava and Florian fall head over heels in love. It could be the beginning of a simple and tender romance, but everyone has their own secrets and abysses.

In this documentary road movie, Austrian filmmaker Ruth Beckermann records the diverse views and activities of Israelis and Arabs as she travels along the route from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Driven by specters of his past, the chemist David Endresz works on developing a new drug called NatAct, which is supposed to heal a variety of psychological disorders. Gradually his doubts concerning the drug’s effectivness increase, but his boss, Viktor Kanzler, wants to redeem his father’s business by launching the product before approval. Journalists Miriam Seifert and Stella Wagner plan to expose the scandal about the drug and try to thwart Viktor Kanzler’s questionable intentions. Nevertheless a more and more torn David tests the drug on an unknown experimentee in front of investors and the press. Suddenly forces stronger than any individual’s intention take over and show how fate has connected everyone in the past.

The experimental short Prater by Friedrich Kuplent can be considered as a pioneering work of Austrian avant-garde film and a city symphony. His film portrays Vienna through a day at the city's famous Prater fairground.

A film about friendship, awakening sexuality, first love, dreams, hopes... and about letting go and starting over again.

The opera, inspired by Euripides’ tragedy The Bacchae, is as seductive as it is topical: When Dionysus – is he a charlatan? is he a demigod? – bursts into the intact world of ancient Thebes, he plunges a city into chaos. In stark contrast to his cousin, King Pentheus, who leads a life marked by purity and asceticism, Dionysus preaches intoxicating excess and sensuality. Aware of the story’s political dimension that resonates in present day politics, Krzysztof Warlikowski brings one of his famed psychological stagings to the Felsenreitschule in Salzburg. In the gigantic three-part set of Malgorzata Szczesniak the captivating tale unfolds like a film using split-screen techniques .

Doris embodies innocence and kindness, sacrificing herself for everyone. Day and night, she cares for their seriously ill mother, while her older sister Carmen prefers to go her own way. After their mother's death, Carmen takes her to the vaudeville theater, where she becomes a star but remains unaware of the dangers this world holds. For a small fee, her sister sells her to Fredy, who eventually abandons her while she is pregnant out of wedlock. Carmen Cartellieri and Doris Kay portray this contrasting pair of sisters. Innocence and selflessness clash with amorality and egoism: the decline of morals and its consequences are vividly depicted. (Filmarchiv Austria)

Short visit to (near) Lugano, Switzerland, including a trip by cable car to the mountain Buie.

Rain on a window pane, a fire truck, a tomcat with innumerable offspring: it is an intentionally unintentional gaze that allows for chance encounters, for stories and memories - leads that Ruth Beckermann follows across Europe and the Mediterranean. Nigerian asylum seekers in Sicily, an Arab musician in Galilee, nationalists drunk on beer in Vienna, the Capitoline Wolf, and three veiled young women trying for minutes to cross a busy road in Alexandria. Threads, cloth and textiles pop up like book marks in a fabric of movement, of traveling or seeking refuge.

'Iron & Butterfly' was made at the Vienna Filmacademy in Winter 2008/09. The challenge was to design and build a scenery in which each of the 18 students of my class can shoot a short film. We decided to build a small theatre.

The crisis of western democracies is ubiquitous and recovery not on the horizon. Accompanying people from various European countries, the film is on the search for the reasons behind the alarming situation.

"H.O.P.E. What You Eat Matters" is a life-changing documentary uncovering and revealing the effects of our typical Western diet on our health, the environment and animals. Featuring Jane Goodall, T. Colin Campbell, Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Vandana Shiva, Melanie Joy and many other experts, the film has a clear message: By changing our eating habits, we can change the world!

Scheugl elevates the trivial, the snapped up and coincidental to unmixed small films. In Safety Film he dismembers an epic Hollywood western by withdrawing the color, story rejection and lack of sound into some of its parts.

Hannes Brahm's life is marked by problems. Not only is he struggling with unemployment, but his marriage is also on the rocks. His wife Claudia also accuses him of not even taking care of their daughter Maria. The situation comes to a head after Maria disappears during a visit to a media market. The parents search for their daughter in panic until Maria suddenly appears on the television and asks Hannes to get her out of the market.

Low budged comedy-crime movie taking place in Bad Gams in Austria