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

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Don't let anybody judge you.

(Vera Gemma)

NEED SOME FILMTIPS? HERE ARE SOME HIGHLIGHTS:

THE LISTENER
R: Steve Buscemi
SA, 22.10. 23:00 Uhr: GARTENBAUKINO
SO, 30. 10. 20:45 Uhr: STADTKINO IM KÜNSTLERHAUS

Tessa Thompson plays a volunteer working for a helpline in this intimate drama directed by Steve Buscemi. From her apartment, in the middle of the night, Beth listens patiently to the problems and anxieties of people who are depressed, afraid or just sad and lonely. She has a calming voice and can use it to soothe her callers’ fears. And she can also be understanding when people talk to her just because they are bored, sleepless or, well, horny. The callers are not here to trigger her story: they are the story. THE LISTENER is about those casual, potent but usually brief relationships that can unfold during a phone call in the middle of the night. We see Thompson’s face and we listen to her and her callers going through some of their dramas. There’s the mother who is worried about her fragile daughter, the man who just broke up with his wife, a sex obsessed “incel”, a traumatized ex-soldier, a bipolar woman, a racist cop and, most challenging of all, a suicidal woman. Lonely people looking for a connection that can give them peace of mind. That’s exactly what Beth does, at least for a few moments. And, for some callers, it can mean the difference between life and death. (Chaiya Thongthang)

 

ENYS MEN
R: Mark Jenkin
SA, 22.10. 23:00 Uhr: STADTKINO IM KÜNSTLERHAUS
SO, 23.10. 21:00 Uhr: URANIA
Best known for his intriguing feature debut BAIT, director Mark Jenkin is not a filmmaker concerned with explanation. He crafts his images meticulously, composing each frame with fastidious care to the film texture, sound design and light, but ultimately leaves the viewer to piece together just what they have seen. ENYS MEN is a fascinating work set in Jenkin’s native Cornwall, a region known for its rich mythology and distinct identity. The film follows “The Volunteer” (Mary Woodvine) across the course of a spring spent on what we are told only is “The Abandoned Island of Enys Men,” which “has become a monument of grief.” She spends each day partaking in quasi-scientific rituals, checking on a bunch of strange white flowers with a bright red center, reading the temperature of the soil before dropping a single white rock down an echoing well. As the film goes on, these actions become increasingly sinister, and the island itself more energized, crawling with specters and visions by the final act. The closest classification for ENYS MEN would be to call it “folk-horror” but even with moments of exhausting suspense and sound design created to make audiences leap out of their seats, the film eludes any neat classification. Jenkin remains a singular filmmaker, creating work unlike anything that came before him. (Leila Latif)

 

NUIT OBSCURE
R: Sylvain George
SA, 22.10. 10:30 Uhr: METRO, HISTORISCHER SAAL
The enclave of Melilla is somehow an anomaly: a piece of Spain on what should really be Moroccan territory. Like in neighboring Ceuta, many migrants from Northern or sub-Saharan Africa gather in Melilla hoping to find an opportunity to “take the risk”. Here they have Europe in plain sight every day, or at least the gigantic ferry called Trasmediterranea. Here they live within of reach of their great dream, to cross the border into the European Union. In his documentary, Sylvain George gives an account of mostly young men from the Maghreb: they are called Harragas, “those who burn” (their papers, in order to avoid being sent back to their countries). Shot in gorgeous black and white, NUIT OBSCURE – FEUILLETS SAUVAGES gives an idea of how time starts to become irrelevant in a situation of endless waiting. But there are also the other moments: the gigantic queue with people who appear to have permission to board the ferry. Or the dangerous jump that may provide access to the forbidden port zones – or end in injury. NUIT OBSCURE tenderly tells bitter stories of abandonment in a liminal non-place. (Bert Rebhandl)

 

HERBARIA
R: Leandro Listorti
SA, 22.10. 20:30 Uhr: FILMMUSEUM
SO, 23.10. 12:30 Uhr: STADTKINO IM KÜNSTLERHAUSIn one playful passage in the film, a little girl tells a story that begins with a killer plant and culminates in the end of the world. At another point, the German filmmaker Narcisa Hirsch meditates on the idea of extinction in her house in Bariloche, Argentina. Director Leandro Listorti knows all too well that species disappear, and that the dramatic reduction of biological species since the mid-nineteenth century is scandalous. But not only do species die, but also films and even the knowledge surrounding their projection and conservation. Drawing a legitimate parallel between the two, Listorti uses testimonies from botanists and people linked to cinematheques and museums, juxtaposing scientific (and other) films with nineteenth-century systems of species conservation, supplementing them with information on the state of the existence of the worlds of plants and of images when relevant.
A lucid treatise on extinction, the film lacks neither humor nor beauty. The number of unforgettable shots of flowers is irrefutable proof of the pleasure that cinema can lavish upon us and of its direct relationship with knowledge, a pleasure that flowers produce due to their paradoxical way of invoking both life and death, as alluded to in the epilogue with elegance and precision. (Roger Koza)

SOME OF OUR GUESTS TODAY

Sylvain George
Director of
NUIT OBSCURE

Minze Tummescheit
Director of
URBAN SOLUTIONS

Michael Heindl
Director of
AIR CRISES

Lennart Hüper
Director of
REIHE 6

Mathieu Almaric
Director of
ZORN I
ZORN II
ZORN III

Amina Handke
Director of
MEIN SATZ

Aboubakar Sanogo
Expert
MED HONDO

Zahra Hondo
Expert
MED HONDO

Ruth Beckermann
Director of
MUTZENBACHER

Lars Eidinger
Protagonist in 
LARS EIDINGER - SEIN ODER NICHTSEIN
 

WHAT IS HAPPENING AT THE VIENNALE CLUB TODAY?
 

Saturday, October 22 - from 10 pm: PLASTIC DREAMS / KATIA CURIE

VIENNALE TRAILER 

Did you see our VIENNALE Trailers yet?

Find all the Trailers and everything you need to know here!

PODCAST

In our Viennale podcasts you'll find talks to films from the Viennale program. New addition today: Swiss director Cyril Schäublin on his new Film UNREST.  

PRESSESTIMMEN
 

Was war da los, Herr Seidl? 
Vom schwulen Vizeleutnant bis zu Tschaikowskis Frau: So queer war die Viennale noch nie