Discoveries from Austria World Cinema

Short film by Thomas Binder

In her three-part series VALIE EXPORT takes a look at the themes of "staged space - staged time", "real movement - movable reality", and "structural film", a genre which no longer exists on public-service television. Using numerous examples from films prepared for the specific media, for example by Wojciek Bruszewski, Malcolm LeGrice, Sergey Eisenstein, Maya Deren, Kurt Kren, Yvonne Rainer, Anne Severson, Alfred Hitchcock, Linda Christanell, Gary Beydler and Marc Adrian, narrative and non-narrative forms of story-telling are examined and compared. Adrian appears in a live interview, and he attempts to explain the conditions of production, methods and Zeitgeist through his own work, including his first computer film, Random (1963). The advanced level of this film is also indicated by the high density of theoretical quotes from Christian Metz, Charles S. Peirce, Vsevolod I. Pudovkin and Ferdinand de Saussure.

Industrial mass murder in the Third Reich, atrocities in other wars, cruelty perpetrated by "normal" citizens: "obedience" appears to be the key to this behavior.

A furious scene, virtuously reassembled, continuously intensifying, yet never moving. A brief excerpt from Charlie Chaplin’s 'The Floorwalker' (1916) serves as starting sequence for 'Intermezzo'. Chaplin, fleeing from a monstrous pursuer, down an up escalator, which at the time was the epitome of techno mechanical modernity; on the side, a mannequin as statuary counterpoint. Pfaffenbichler arranges the takes that he has pulled from the original film, enlarged, and in part, set as negatives or alienated in terms of color, according to a special verse scheme: ABABA BCBCB DCDCD, etc., whereby the selected excerpt continually advances to the action and the interlinking of the images becomes increasingly dodgy.

“The narrow passage or dangerous passage is a common motif in both funerary and initiation mythologies. I step inside and move through a corridor of electrically charged wires, constantly experiencing painful shocks and sinking to the floor. But I accept the challenge and, in a somewhat pathological increase in willpower, I press my head against the wires again and again. Society is a closed, structured space, which regulates all human energy through painful barriers. Only through an effort of will to overcome the pain (which is at the core of society) is one able to achieve a state of free expression.” – VALIE EXPORT

On October 14, 2012, a 43-year-old Austrian paramedic took a cap on the edge of the space, about 40 km high, and launched a caída libre hacia la Tierra that convirtió en el primer ser humano en viajar más rápido que la velocity del sonido fuera de un vehicle.

The story of a young man who goes on a treacherous journey to save his tribe from extinction as a never-ending drought has changed the world forever! It has become a deadly desert, sucking the life out of everything. With his hope set on a mysterious little box, can he overcome to save his tribe?

36 refers to both aesthetic traditions of abstract painting and the structural approaches of early geometric films (such as those of Walther Ruttmann and Hans Richter). At the same time, other associations arise, such as early video games and their restricted movement, which was limited to the main axes. When watching 36, an unbelievable tension and concentration develops for the viewer, caused not least by the clarity of the concept and the reduction of the means. (Gerald weber)

Summer 1999, in the center of Vienna: two very distinct parades took place simultaneously on the same street. One was a policemen's parade; the other a celebration of gay pride. Because the policemen didn't want to march hand in hand with the Gay Movement, a typical Austrain solution was found: while the gays marched clockwise, the policemen marched counter-clockwise.

Freude is a film trying to mimic a visual orgasm. It’s trying to have sex with your retina.

All sorts of trouble arise within a Viennese middle-class family, when they are visited by a bunch of Russian relatives.

A collaborative work based on Joanna Spyri's novel, Heidi.. The entire work consisted of a fabricated set, a group of partial and full life-size rubber figures, two large backdrop paintings, and a video tape shot entirely on the set. The set was installed at the center of the gallery (Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna)... We were interested in imitating film and television production, and exaggerating the fractured process of film. - Paul McCarthy In Heidi we toyed with this illusionary nature by treating the doubles and stand-ins for the actors as obvious sculpture, more in the manner of a puppet show than traditional film. - Mike Kelley

Impresario Adler is imprisoned for insulting an official and therefore unable to negotiate an important concert tour with opera singer Lauri Volpi. In his place, he convinces Friedel, a pretty music student, to travel to Venice to meet the famous tenor. In her travels, Friedel sends postcards written by Adler to his wife to prevent her from knowing his real whereabouts. When Friedel meets Volpi’s attorney, she mistakes him for the singer, and they spend days together in a romantic, picturesque Italy without him revealing his true identity. After his release from prison, Adler realizes two things: firstly, Friedel has been negotiating with the wrong man, and secondly, his wife has discovered the trick with the postcards, traveled to Italy, and started a storm of her own. But when the storm has cleared and the confusions are clarified, nothing holds them back from a happy ending.

An instant-camera and a TV camera are placed opposite one another. They operate at the same time. The actor takes photographs with the Polaroid camera, the TV team films.

I took a photograph of the view out of the window and had a very large negative made from it, which I fastened to the lens hood attacement in front of the camera. I tried to bring the negative into alignment with the real landscape which I could see through the camera. Then I filmed for months, changing the focus from near to far and then back again. (K.K.)

The Creation, Hob.XXI:2, by Joseph Haydn, performed by the Wiltener Sängerknaben and Academia Jacobus Stainer, directed by Johannes Stecher, in Sterzing parish church in August 2021.

Felix is a flea who was taken in by a rhinoceros beetle family and that’s why he thinks he is a rhinoceros beetle as well. His family can’t bring themselves to tell him the truth, until one day their village is threatened by a stag beetle army. Felix wants to get help, as he knows the legend of a mighty beetle king who will save them all. He sets off on an adventurous journey and soon meets companions who accompany him on his mission. Through their path full of hidden dangers, Felix learns about his true identity.

A chain of household accidents, provoked by panic over a basically harmless cut.

A human being has no sensory organ for time. We perceive it, and what is it which we are perceiving thereby? To what extent does our contemporary society influence the way we experience it? Why has time become a dominating factor in the mordern world?

Thomas, a young programmer, leads an uneventful life. He suffers under his irascible boss and spends his lonely evenings watching videos. However, his monotonous life changes when he meets Tamara at the video store, who brings new color into his life with her open and warm-hearted nature. Despite initial difficulties, a loving romance develops between the two.

The German saying, "Don´t paint the devil on the wall", is portrayed by combining wall paintings and digital paintings, exploring the impact of human sensory loss.

A film with and about the painter Christian Ludwig Attersee. The external occasion, Attersee's fiftieth birthday is being complemented by an in-depth documentation of Attersee's art and oeuvre which gives a transparent account of his perception of reality and its visual transformation.

The filmmaker Friedl vom Gröller films herself and her colleague, the filmmaker Christiana Perschon. A projector casts images from an earlier Vom Gröller film onto the wall. A silent, black-and-white studio film that brings together all the elements of the cinematic dispositif.

A soccer pitch emerges based on a process standardized down to the last detail. Layers of sand and soil are piled up and leveled, pieces of turf are rolled out and cut to size. Nothing is left to chance. Only when nature has been cast into shape can the game begin.

All over the world, the athletic community is reeling; the covid pandemic of 2020/2021 has brought changes and restrictions to the world community. Inspirational, compelling, and uplifting, this film follows the lives of the most determined athletes, as they experience a truly unique period of sporting and world history. As we spend time with an extraordinary cast of international athletes, we discover what you can be achieved, and how the most organized sporting minds react to unprecedented uncertainty.

The starting point for this film is an eighteenth-century musical dice game attributed to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. A sequence of short, precomposed musical options are randomly selected through rolling dice and following a table of rules; these sequences are then patched together to create a new composition. Here we see one possible result of this chance procedure.

This epic documentary subtly introduces the complex worldview of iconic filmmaker and theoretician Peter Kubelka (born 1934, Vienna). While Kubelka’s radical and pioneering body of films is a highly condensed work of about an hour, focusing on the essence of cinema, his legendary lectures often unfold over many hours. These lectures on “what is cinema” and “cooking as an art form” are frequently illuminated by presentation of archaeological artefacts from Kubelka’s eclectic collection. He considers his ongoing collecting to be an expanded film practice which explores the evolution of humanity.
 Martina Kudláček has carefully woven an open-ended portrait which goes beyond the biographical to reveal fresh insights into the phenomenon of film.

In winter, a landscape straight out of a fairy tale; in summer, still a region to refresh mind and soul – Rosegger's forest homeland. Deeply snow-covered forests, ptarmigan, snow hares, and majestic red deer in winter; refreshing streams, blossoming fruit trees, and shy fawns in spring; cooling giant trees, lush alpine meadows, and playful chamois kids in summer; otters and noble crayfish in crystal-clear trout streams, and a magnificent display of colors in autumn – all this Peter Rosegger described in his books. More than a hundred years have passed, but what has changed most since then is the people.

In her found-footage spin cycle created with a special camera device, Lydia Nsiah conjures up an immersive rhythm in which one can sense fears and chances, and watch as they become dynamic. Spiraling images from sci-fi films are augmented with sounds by Pisitakun, Jejuno, and Billy Roisz to an embodiment of technological images.

When 25-year-old rapper Ardalan A. “Nazar“ is released from four weeks in custody, he faces more than just financial difficulties. The Austrian with a migrant background is accused of committing a robbery. His friends Vahid and Musti are on his side, but they both have very similar problems. With no training and no job, Ardalan turns the only thing he really knows how to do - rapping - into a profession and travels to Berlin on his own to record his second hip-hop album. Although Schwarzkopf - as he and his friends call each other - claims to want to put his past on the streets behind him, it seems to be too intertwined with his present and his fans. A parallel society trapped in a vicious circle from which there is rarely an escape. A film about a new generation and its longing for identity.

Revolving Rounds is a cyclical film in both form and content. Shot at an agricultural field on the outskirts of Vienna, Johann Lurf and Christina Jauernik’s 3D short begins as it ends, tracking a planimetric path alongside three greenhouses as the early morning sun beams across the surrounding lands.

Short film depicting a typewriter and text falling over.

Slavery has never ended. It has just assumed other names and ways to conceal itself. Roser Corella’s film zooms in on Beirut, where the upper class on a large scale hires maids from countries such as Ethiopia, Kenya and the Philippines through agencies that advise people how to cheat and manipulate the young women to work full-time (literally) for meagre wages. An upsetting revelation, but Corella keeps a cool head and tears the inhuman ‘kafala’ system apart piece by piece. She analyses the situation in both words and images, but it is the underpaid maids themselves who provide the conclusion in the form of demonstrations, protests and demands for proper working conditions. ‘Room without a View’, the title of which describes the rooms made available to the women, combines an artistic and an investigative approach to its exposition of the abominable monster that is modern slavery. A film that is highly topical in all parts of the world - unfortunately.

A woman is setting the table for dinner. Her husband does not come; she waits. Finally, an (unexpected) visitor suprises her.

An industrial film on two kinds of labour: socialist and capitalist. A poetic investigation of human relations with the soil and the Earth. A striking journey from Poland to Taiwan that makes us think, contemplate and dream. Pure film.

A black comedy from Styria on the subjects of hanging, heavenly music and strange burial costumes.

Sabotage acts are committed on the film theaters of a city for no apparent reason. Two secretaries of "Mega Film", which has been damaged by a sabotage act, decide to try to find the saboteurs in order to determine what their motives are.

Opera by Strauss

The lovesick Jelena spends her afternoons strolling among the tombs and leafless trees at Père-Lachaise cemetery. As she sings Françoise Hardy’s “Tous les garçons et les filles”, one old grave depicting a couple draws her attention.

On Krampus Day, two women set out to lure a peculiar creature into a trap, to kill him, and serve his meat for an annual tradition.

Handstands on the ping pong table, selfies while skating: the young people of Hasenleiten use the housing estate’s park around the clock. And it’s also good for filmmaking. Lotte Schreiber’s documentary accompanies the adolescents in their daily lives and at the same time, tells the chequered history of the housing estate in southeast Vienna.

Explore the sun’s powerful storms, its impact on Earth, and groundbreaking research shaping our understanding of solar activity and its effects on our planet.

Lene and Timo have retreated to a house by the sea. Here it feels as if the world consists of the two of them only. But something unspoken clouds their time together.

Excerpts from and insights into the world of the Austrian cabaret artist Otto Grünmandl. His work, his life and memories of his childhood in Tirol, which was overshadowed by the Nazi regime's persecution from 1938 - 1945.

The leitmotif of this work is the peculiarity, which can be found in many people, of gradually assuming the characteristics of islands. This central theme with its documentary approach is improvised upon in three sequences ("The Turtle Island", "Single Malt" and "Dino's Island")

...and the children ride the blown up air goat (40 ft. long) into the water, the attic penguin saves a hanged man and is disturbed by the little reaper. The bat falls and the angel crashes down. Katharina, the read-head, develops from a baby to a two year old in four stages, each lasting six months...

'Zweite Tür Rechts' is a satirical political comedy about the Austrian government's Department of Direct Democracy.

The story of a group of young people during the last day of summer in Vienna.

Two dancers move through an empty apartment and stretch out in the available space. From the window, you can see they are in Vienna’s Alterlaa housing project, a satellite city. Life feels opaque next to the strange beauty of the concrete walls and the green terraces; it is sufocating to live in pre-designed happiness. An elderly woman drags herself through the complex, trying to leave her life behind. In a place that houses 9000 people, you can find absolutely everything. That’s the fun of it but also the misery.

The reality the conscientious objector Roman is confrontend with at an old-age home is something he has previously been spared: suffering, frailty, death. He has to take care of "General" Kulat, an old Wehrmacht officer, a fanatic militarist. Their confrontation becomes war.