21 Oct 2021

DAILY: Day 1, October 21, 2021

In our VIENNALE DAILIES you'll find everything you need to know about what's happening around the festival!

ZITAT

I shall have no more power over my text, exposed to the public just like my body was exposed at the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital.

(Annie Ernaux, HAPPENING)

NEED SOME FILMTIPS? HERE ARE SOME HIGHLIGHTS!

THE CARD COUNTER
Paul Schrader
22.10. 14:30: GARTENBAUKINO
30.10. 20:30: GARTENBAUKINO

Paul Schrader, one of Hollywood’s most iconic figures, now returns a few years after his majestic FIRST REFORMED (V’2018) with another poignant instant classic.
This time, our hero is William Tell (a terrific Oscar Isaac), a gambler who forged his cardplaying skills during the time he served for a hideous crime committed during the 2003 Iraq invasion. His existence is a sort of limbo in which rituals and repetition are part of an impossible expiation. This sad routine is shaken when he crosses paths with Cirk, a young boy seeking vengeance. William’s attempt to put Cirk on the straight and narrow will represent his ultimate possibility of redemption. Set among poker tables and motel rooms, where the ugliness of the decors seems to be yet another price to pay for our protagonist, THE CARD COUNTER is an uncanny trip in the depths of human nature. William Tell’s journey out of darkness takes the spectator to the innermost places of human soul, where the seed of evil and the idea of forgiveness and love are created. In his usual dry tone, Schrader once again redefines the code of genre cinema and delivers a sharp reflection on the collective traumas that shape our private identities. (Rebecca De Pas)

LA VEDUTA LUMINOSA
Fabrizio Ferraro
22.10. 21:00: Stadtkino im Künstlerhaus
27.10. 13:30: Urania

The third part of what could be considered a trilogy on the leitmotiv of walking, THE LUMINOUS VIEW (after LES UNWANTED DE EUROPA and CHECK POINT BERLIN) invites us to wander through the Black Forest with Emmer, an intransigent director who intends to make a film on Friedrich Hölderlin. Practical and optimistic Caterina, the production assistant, could not be more different from her travelling companion. Yet it is precisely from this distance that the spark of an unexpected complicity and almost loving tension will arise. Initially sceptical, she ends up becoming increasingly involved in Emmer’s pained meanderings.
The film progressively plunges us into a suspended zone, a wondrous walk through the forest that confronts Emmer with the untold mysteries of nature. Using an optical device that narrows and blurs our field of vision, Ferraro alternates between sharp and distorted images as his protagonist seeks an ultimate truth, hidden in Hölderlin’s last poetic words, which he tries to decipher by following his footsteps in the forest. Hölderlin inhabits every one of the film’s frames: his spirit is in the rustling of the leaves, in the breaking of the branches under Emmer’s frantic steps, in the protagonist’s endless repetition of the poem, and in his desperate hope for a final epiphany. (Maria Giovanna Vagenas)

GUESTS AT THE OPENING TODAY

Audrey Diwan
Director of
L' EVÉNEMENT

Anamaria Vartolomei
Actress in
L' EVÉNEMENT

Terence Davies
Director of
Trailer & Monography

WHAT'S HAPPENING AT THE VIENNALE BAR TODAY?

Thursday, October 21: 7 p.m.: Lars Bulnheim, Ola Egbowon & B-Soul Band (Live)

VIDEO OF THE DAY

The Viennale 2002 included a tribute to charismatic cameraman Ed Lachman. During an audience discussion after screening of one of his latest films, Far from Heaven, Lachman greeted the audience in the sold-out Gartenbaukino theater in German, then continued in English: “You have to know, I always carry a piece of Austria with me.” Lachman prefers to work with the cameras of the Austrian manufacturer moviecam. We are very happy that 19 years later we will have him as our guest again as he is going to present SONGS FOR DRELLA .

PODCAST

Patrick Holzapfel already hosted five of six curators of this years retrospective together with the Austrian Film Museum, Film as a subversive art 2021. A Tribute to Amos Vogel" . You can find the dialogues on Spotify and here on our website. During the festivals more talks will follow.