Discoveries from Austria World Cinema

1905: Syphilis and prostitution flourish in a small town somewhere in the Danube monarchy. In the midst of the night stands Marie, a young prostitute, who has learned how to live in this shady environment. Marie's encounters with johns have many faces; notorious bon vivants, an old man who brings cake from his wife, and Count Albin, a lofty gentleman whose behavior is very strange. Before Marie sleeps with him, she must tie a blue band with white dots around her thigh. The next day she encounters the Count shopping with his twelve year old daughter, Anna. It's apparent that Anna who wears a blue band with white dots in her hair is afraid of her father. Marie is deeply touched by Anna's emotional state which provokes her curiosity about the child. As she investigates Anna's situation Marie's humanity is revealed. It's ironic that a girl, Anna, of noble origins finds a motherly role model in Marie the prostitute.

Lisa is kidnapped by men on the street in broad daylight, and is kept on a chain as a plaything for their sadistic sexual desires. After much suffering, a supernatural event turns the tables in her favor, giving her the opportunity to take revenge. Meanwhile, Lisa's tough girlfriend Andrea is searching for the missing girl, and gets dragged into a storm of cruelty and violence

Not far from Vienna's Main Train Station director Dariusz Kowalski undertakes laid-back explorations of a dynamic urban site that is in perpetual transformation.

Ground Control is a rough video miniature. It begins with the simplest and most fundamental thing the electronic moving-image machine has to offer: the uncontrolled beam of electrons directed across a photoelectric layer of cesium oxide lining a Braun tube, or snow. Recording this chaos involves a fascination that existed during the early days of film: the repeatability of a unique event. A visual sequence which has never before existed and will never happen again becomes reproducible, thereby losing the status of the chaotic. This idea, a result of the desire to control an uncontrollable world, is the beginning of the chain of associations in this video, which randomly acting ants push their way into. The image of them crawling is manipulated in the reproduced images, distortion of their movement is forced upon them. The insects become monsters when, after being locked into the frame, they suddenly burst into the (snow)storm as a sequence of individuals.

The cinema documentary Kinders follows children and teenagers of different origins through their sometimes difficult and confusing, sometimes funny and bitter lives. They all take part in the music education program ((superar)), where these neglected and sometimes invisible children develop from outsiders into confident young people who learn about their hidden potentials through the power of music.

A personal audio-visual notebook from Tibet (1988-95). The everyday things, the breathtaking light, the enjoyment of the common, the second look, the love for the detail, memories.

“Worldrevolution” is the story of Stefan Weber, his rock band Drahdiwaberl and their dream of worldwide revolution. The movie also chronicles contemporary history in Austria and the world over the last 50 years. Drahdiwaberl - a Viennese dialect word meaning (more or less) “spin the lady” fi rst performed at a communist-organized music festival in 1969 and rose to fame as Vienna’s number one cult band. An early bass player and singer was Falco, who rose to international fame. Drahdiwaberl was also an infl uence on extreme musicians such as Alice Cooper. The frame narrative of the fi lm is a “totally normal day” in the life of Stefan Weber and his pet chicken, bringing the energy and anarchy of punk roaring into the 21st century …

Antiphon is constituted by the same 4 basic elements of cinema, light and darkness, sound and silence, as is my film Arnulf Rainer but it has the opposite form. Negative becomes positive, positive becomes negative, silence becomes sound, sound becomes silence. - Peter Kubelka

George Marinescu was the principal news anchor of Romania’s national television for twenty years under the communist dictatorship. In 1989, just hours after broadcasting the regime’s threats against the demonstrators, he becomes a spokesperson for the revolutionary group that has occupied the television station. He later goes on to pursue a career as a journalist in the democratic era.

Romeo and Juliet romance on great Lake Balaton, where rival families each control half the fishing rights.When the girl is suspected of being with the wrong boy, she is set on a boat in a storm to be judged in a trial of survival.

In Grey Star 2, Maschek have constructed a hilarious and incisive political satire using found footage of anonymous and various forms of male bonding, juxtaposed with a voice-over in a thick Austrian dialect. Images of army training and vacations in the picturesque countryside warp into cheerful accounts of experiences had during and after service in the German army. Exuberant Nazi nostalgia with an unsettling basis in reality!

A short film by Bärbel Neubauer.

Short film about two vagrants, their encounter, an argument, and their parting ways.

What happens when green tea meets milk? Find out as four young urban nomads find themselves in Tokyo - a city spinning with pop culture and ancient traditions. Follow a quirky Austrian artist drawn to the offbeat Japanese woman he met at New York's Chelsea Hotel and a mysterious monument he discovers in Tokyo. A privileged young Japanese woman who finds freedom in the role of Elevator Girl, where her many choices are reduced to "up" and "down". A radio announcer from New York who falls in love with a rogue salaryman.

The heavy metal detox becomes an aesthetic paraphrase on the removal of dental fillings in the latest film by Austrian artist and filmmaker Josef Dabernig.

Teenage girl Jana wants to be photographed as a femme fatale, in the hopes of seducing Tom – a man many years her senior. Her friend, Andy, agrees to help her out with his analog camera. Surrounded by the constricting solitude of life in the countryside, they arrange to meet in a room at the local inn. While Jana struggles with being fatale, Andy finds himself longing to be closer to her. Slowly, Jana begins to sense that what she’s been looking for all along might very well be nearer than she thought.

In this evocative work, we hear and see the interactions of a man and a woman in a pristine forest. We gain a sense of intimacy with them and nature. Suddenly we leave the worries of our scattered lives and begin to remember the primal elements of existence: earth, wind, fire, water, people, and creation. This epiphanic process demands patience and an almost meditative state, but it is so worth the effort – just as a journey a mountain meadow requires some effort in order to find its treasures. We leave the traditions of narrative for a more open approach to cinema. There are suggestions and onsets of a storyline, but almost everything remains a mystery for our encountering. This is a film that will allow you to observe and exist, without anxiety, without demands, and it allows you a rare glimpse into the life of things.

This innovative and spectacular 3-part series shows how examples from nature can make human beings and their machines faster, smarter and more efficiently. Whether in ice deserts, under thousands of meters of water, or on the highest mountains in Order to survive, animals need the conceivable best, toughest and most sophisticated equipment. Over the past three and a half billion years of evolution always had it develop new, more crafty plans and recipes. When we observe people's nature, therefore we find many of our own toughest technical problems already solved. We just have to look closely.

After a long day at work, a frog returns to his apartment, hoping to relax. But his clumsy neighbor living below has other plans. The peace and quiet he longs for is severely disturbed — until things finally escalate.

A small, cheerful homage to one of Friedl vom Gröller's favorite directors – Carl Theodor Dreyer – or perhaps a game of telephone with acquaintances. (Dietmar Schwärzler)

In 1942 Anna and Wasyl Major were sent from Galicia to Lungau and forced to work on farms. Only after the war's end brother and sister heard from each other. Both are staying in Austria and hard work on other people's farms still shapes their life.

A woman searching for the traces of her mother in herself. Live, re-live.

A hip hop musical, shot in Dakar, using Senegalese musicians and artists, which deconstructs comprehensive threats to human rights posed by the rise of the algorithmic management of daily life via social media and online platforms.

How are you using my memories? What programs will replace us? Where is my data? At a bank in the year 2051

From the Styriarte Festival in Graz Austria, the acclaimed mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli and Maestro Nikolaus Harnoncourt with his orchestra Concentus Musicu Wien, present a concert on Haydn arias and Symphony No.92, the "Oxford". The singing virtuosity of "Scena di Berenice" is sublime as is the performance of The "Oxford" Symphony from the ensemble renown for its specialty in early music and playing on period instruments. A unique concert.

The documentary is issueing the life of people being victims of the childrens "medical" department "Am Spiegelgrund". Victims and relatives of victims tell their problems handling memories that determines their life up the present days. The documentary is concentrated on the path of four persons to enable the viewers to get an impression of their memories. The victims stories are surrounded by statements of experts about the historical and medical background, among others: Elisabeth Brainin, doctor of psychiatrics, Wolfgang Neugebauer, chairman of the documentary archives of Austrian resistance, and Werner Vogt, medical doctor, who was engaged in a defamation court battle with Heinrich Gross (and aquitted in 1981). Dr Gross' trial started on March, 21 in Vienna. After one hour the judge adjourned the proceedings for an indefinite time, ruling that Dr. Gross was not mental fit enough to follow the trial.

A modern days Diana comes to the border of a wood, near a water creek with canes, undresses, and places each clothing item on a tree branch. The camera shows her every movement, but also her reflection and those of the woods on the clear, moving waters. When she is going to lift up her white undershirt - the film teasingly ends.

2020, life diced together two guys to document the longest lap race in the world. A seventeen-year-old with a passion for filming, and another to tell a story.

Shiny organic surfaces lead into a stream of movements and elements, a passage of time in which all earthly order appears to be dissolved. In shimmering orange costumes, three figures wander through a secret cave world. Their ritualized movements not only build up an occult tension but also conjure up something absent but possibly soon approaching in gestures of union.

In his film, Josef Aichholzer observes the search for the perfect body, the golden calf of the leisure society: Meditation, sport, medicine or gene technology may be used but the goal remains the same: the individual gets a sense of life, efficiency and recognition from the fitness studio and the operating table. Experiments on genetic methods of selection are carried out under the microscope. The struggle against wrinkled skin, thin legs and flabby bellies is becoming more intensive and successful. The more time a person devotes to his body, the more possibilities he has to perfect it. The human hand seems to have a tight grip on evolution.

Austrian United Nations Judge Claudia Fenz arrives in Kosovo to hear the case of a group of ethnic Albanian men accused of killing a Serbian woman. Whilst dealing with the peculiarities of the region, including rolling blackouts, she meets with prominent locals and learns of the traditional, somewhat radical, approach to justice in Kosovo, favoring reconciliation over punishment.

Seebühne (or floating stage), with its 7,000 seat open-air amphitheatre, is the location for the French composers most successful opera. With a set designed by British artist Es Devlin, who has designed sets for stars such as Adele, U2, Take That and Kanye West, the stage sits on the water near the shores of the stunning Lake Constance in Austria. This romantic and dramatic setting regularly welcomes opera lovers from all over the world, where the productions are extravagantly original and innovative and frequently use the waters of the lake as an extension of the stage.

Aluminum is booming and found its way into every facet of our lives: deodorants, sun lotions, vaccines or filtered drinking water. But what do we actually know about the side effects of our daily companions? The light metal comes with heavy consequences. Latest research links it to the increase in Alzheimer's, breast cancer and food allergies. The complicated mining of aluminum is also an ecological issue.

Like two parallel lines, their lives are similar—too similar to ever meet. However, the IRY app can change this. It brings these two people together—and thus questions every previous relationship. The short film tells the story of a young couple whose relationship is put to the test.

Emma and her two sisters are confronted with their different life philosophies when, after many years, their father suddenly returns home.

Void, elegiac images - a story and loving and dying: A journey entrusts itself to the viewer's ability to associate and creates a collision of melancholy, softly red-filtered vacation images with an (apparently) totally unrelated story.

"Keep your eyes on the road, your hands upon the wheel", Martha and Alex should have taken Jim Morrison's advice to heart, but on their car ride through an idyllic landscape they are primarily occupied with themselves. Only when real life comes crashing into their small self-involved world in the shape of a little dog and its grim owner, do things get set in motion - more than they could have asked for. A devious road movie full of hefty surprises.

The confrontation between two women - a choreographer of a successful troupe and a prima ballerina. Stung by the news of her upcoming dismissal, the prima begins to scheme..

The diagnosis of mantle cell lymphoma not only ruined Albert Farkas' summer day when he received it. He narrates scenes from everyday life with the diagnosis. Josephine Ahnelt's short documentary shows Farkas' self-assertion through his humor, with which he defies the initial low point.

Biopic on the life of Franz Schubert.

Documentary about youth in Austria. Peter Patzak and Walter Kindler traveled the country to speak with young people of a wide variety of different social classes and environments.

Black Rain White Scars depicts a twilight of reality. With the steady shot of a Gotham-like cityscape, Lukas Marxt guides us between vestiges of visionary architecture and narrow planted apartment buildings. As we’re searching for our relational point within it, the overwhelming murmuring of the human, car, and boat traffic, at the same time marginalises our position. We are a part of the scenery, though secluded and apart from it.

Documents the daily routine in the only women prison in Austria.

It was planned as a journey to one of the most beautiful and most fascinating islands in the world! It turns out as their most dangerous and toughest adventure ever! the professional Freeskiers Phil Meier, Matthias Haunholder and Matthias Mayr try to reach the Island Onekotan far out in stormy seas to ski the most unique Peak in the World.

Where previously an unbroken white self-confidence did not even allow the question as to the existence and function of the "other", the black African, to arise, nowadays an enlightened generation is attempting to cover up the difference in the assumption that the habit of ignoring race will be understood as a tactful, even generous liberal gesture. The outline of one's own soul, a "white negro". The film is an attempt to admit more identity, a feeling and searching for validity.

‘Kunst & Revolution is a documentation on the famous action known as the “filthy uni mess”, which led to a jury court trial. I only had a few metres of film with me and they were quickly spent, but still the film gives one a rough impression of the events. As a whole mythology quickly arose around the event, I altered the material to counteract this effect (through repetition, and adding other material, for instance from a film about keeping dogs, and my own leftover footage from the Muehl action number 54 ‘Im Freudenauer Wasser’).’ In film 16 of his anthology Ernst Schmidt Jr. documented the actions of Günter Brus, Otto Muehl, Peter Weibel and Oswald Wiener.

Three young women are smiling and playing in a lake, their nude bodies reflecting in the water, when a forest watcher appears from the wood, and chases them away. They get out of the water, pick their clothes from tree branches, and move away before putting them on. The bearded man seems to be shy, but he is chasing after them through the wood, anyway.

“Rats in the Walls” is a short animation that is inspired by one of H.P. Lovecraft’s most gripping horror tales. The film presents the story of a middle aged man who wakes up one night to horrific sounds coming from the walls of his own apartment. He believes the screeches to be the sound of rats but no one else will confirm his suspicion. In his search and difficulties in locating the source of these sounds, the protagonist is rattled by whether what is happening exists in his mind or in reality.

This portrait of Allentsteig, a military training area and nature reserve, presents various aspects of life. Without comment but with a keen eye for humorous details.