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Perhaps I seek certain utopian things, space for human honour and respect, landscapes not yet offended, planets that do not exist yet, dreamed landscapes. Very few people seek these images today.
Werner Herzog
FILMTIPS
Kvinde ukendt
May el-Toukhy
Denmark 2026, 126 min, OV w/ENG subtitles
Sat, Oct 31, 9 pm: GARTENBAUKINO
In KVINDE UKENDT, war offers no clean break: violence survives by changing its language. May el-Toukhy sets her story in Copenhagen in 1945, as liberation exposes a society that turns shame into spectacle. Marie, a servant about to marry her wealthy boss Christian, is poised to cross the class divide when her past resurfaces. As women accused of fraternising with Germans are publicly humiliated, the film lays bare a double standard: men can conceal collaboration behind status and business, while women’s guilt is inscribed into their bodies. The striking mise-en-scène shapes a world of appearances, power and menace, with Jasper Spanning’s camerawork framing Marie through doors, windows and railings to turn the mansion into a trap; the muted palette punctuated by flashes of red sharpens the threat. Mathilde Arcel lets Marie’s fear surface in small shifts of gaze and gesture, revealing a woman always weighing up how she is read. Yet Marie is neither victim nor heroine: survival drives her to lie and betray. When she wears the altered wedding dress of Christian’s dead wife, the past is literally refashioned around her. In the final image, her body is measured like a mannequin: the war may be over, but the power to decide who a woman can be remains in other hands. (Maria Giovanna Vagenas)
Holy Wood Dust
Victor Kossakovsky
Germany, Spain, Italy 2026, 105 min, OV w/GER/ENG subtitles
Sun, Nov 1, 12.45 pm: GARTENBAUKINO
Mon, Nov 2, 6.15 pm: URANIA
Victor Kossakovsky’s documentaries often focus on grand topics, such as human construction (ARCHITECTON, 2024) or the planet’s use of water (AQUARELA, 2018). In his latest film, the director addresses climate change and deforestation, although his angle is unique. HOLY WOOD DUST considers the European fir tree from two different perspectives. Following a massive storm in the Dolomites, crews work to clear out felled trees to make way for new cultivation. Meanwhile, Kossakovsky examines the Christmas tree industry, showing how thousands of firs are planted, harvested and eventually discarded. HOLY WOOD DUST is ultimately about the havoc that human beings wreak on the natural world. While extreme weather threatens old growth forests, capitalism turns these living things into yuletide timber. Much like Christmas itself, the fir tree’s traditional role in pagan rituals has become more commercial than spiritual. Because the fir is overloaded with symbolism, it ceases to be recognised as a part of a complex ecosystem. Kossakovsky quite literally asks whether we can see the forest for the trees.
(Michael Sicinski)
The Longest Yard
Robert Aldrich
US 1974, 121 min, OV
Sun, Nov 1, 6.30 pm: FILMMUSEUM
THE LONGEST YARD was the last of the major box-office hits that allowed Aldrich to continue his career with an unwaveringly uncompromising spirit. Ironically, it was in the hitherto notoriously unsuccessful genre of sports comedies that he established a formula which has since been copied countless times, albeit without ever matching the power of the original (which was spiced with a pinch of existentialism), to say nothing of the breathtaking staging of the decisive match, which Aldrich, a self-confessed fan, wanted to make more exciting than a real game: the epic result even manages to captivate viewers with no interest in American football. Burt Reynolds plays a disgraced football star now in prison who puts together a team of inmates to take on the hated guards. Eddie Albert shines as the villainous prison governor, whom Aldrich cast as President Nixon’s doppelgänger, as he also commented: “Eddie Albert is Nixon! When I put him in those clothes, and put the flag in there, and had the football talk, and the guy turning on and off the tape recorder—on the set, everybody said: ‘You can’t do that Bob, you’re going too far!’ I must say I thought I did go too far, but obviously I didn’t go half far enough, because nobody, nobody understood.” (Christoph Huber)
SOME OF OUR GUESTS TODAY
doris duhennois
Director of
Morne Fortune
Mara Chavez
Director of
Morne Fortune
Miranda Pennell
Director of
A PERSON OF THE FOREST
Eloy Enciso
Director of
Todo es cárcel
Marta Diaz
Voice in
TODO ES CÁRCEL
Beli Martínez
Producer of
Todo es cárcel
David Tryhorn
Director of
Cantona: Flower of Evil
Isabelle Stever
Director of
I RARELY WAKE UP DREAMING
Anna Melikova
Screenplay for
I RARELY WAKE UP DREAMING
Éric Baudelaire
Director of
CAR LA LUNE
Samuel M. Delgado
Director of
Las islas afortunadas
Helena Girón
Director of
Las islas afortunadas
Grégoire Colin
Actor in
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Max Koller
Director of
DER TAG VOR DEM ABEND
VIENNALE ZENTRALE AT FUNKHAUS WIEN
1040 Vienna , Argentinierstraße 30b
Free Admission to all events!
5 pm: ROUND TABLE: IN MEMORY OF SIMON FIELD
Founder of the magazine Afterimage, pioneer of Asian cinema at London’s ICA, director of IFFR, where he established the Tiger Competition and Exploding Cinema, and producer of Apichatpong Weerasethakul: Simon Field (1946–2026) was above all a connector, bringing together people, films and ideas with warmth, generosity and a great sense of humour. Friends and longtime colleagues come together to remember him. The event will be followed by a toast to Simon. With: Ilse Hughan (NL), Gerwin Tamsma (NL), Cis Bierinckx (BE), Andrea Lissoni (I), Dennis Lim (USA) and Ben Rivers (UK). In English.
In cooperation with the MEDIA Desk at the Federal Ministry of Housing, Arts, Culture, Media and Sport (BMWKMS) as part of 35 Years of MEDIA.
From 10 pm: HALLOWEEN! METROPOLIS! CLEEEO / KAPOTE / THAO
Zu Halloween verwandelt sich der Viennale Club in die Welt von Fritz Langs METROPOLIS, dem visionären Schwarz-Weiß-Film aus dem Jahr 1927, dessen fiktive Handlung im Jahr 2026 spielt. Toy Tonics-Chef Kapote übersetzt die futuristische Ästhetik des Films in die Gegenwart und bringt mit seinem funky Mix aus Disco, House, Broken Beat und New Wave die Energie der Berliner Toy Tonics Jams nach Wien. An seiner Seite steht Cleeeo aus Süditalien mit einem groovigen Disco- und House-Set. Local Support kommt von Thao. Kostüme sind herzlich willkommen, aber kein Muss.
In Kooperation mit FM4.
V'26 VIDEOS
A selection of Q&As is available here!
