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A cinema experience can remind us that we are part of something bigger than ourselves. We are all in the same boat, sharing the same fears and difficulties. Cinema offers us the solace of remembering exactly that.
Florian Zeller
Abbas Kiarostami, I Remember: Lecture
Sat, Oct 31, 4.30 pm: METRO, HISTORISCHER SAAL
For more than twenty years, Massoumeh Lahidji has attended conversations with prominent filmmakers as an interpreter at festivals, masterclasses, interviews, and film productions. Among all the voices she has translated, one has left a particularly profound mark on her: that of Abbas Kiarostami.
Ten years after the death of the Iranian director, poet and photographer, Lahidji remembers an artist whose work and thought continue to stay with her to this day. Born out of personal closeness and many years of collaboration, her impressions, observations, and memories go far beyond the standard tribute to a cinematic artist.
In the spirit of Georges Perec, the event follows no chronology, makes no claim of completeness. Instead, a multifaceted portrait of Kiarostami emerges from fragments, anecdotes, and reflections — capturing his humor, his wisdom, and his unique view of the world. A personal invitation to encounter one of contemporary cinema’s most important filmmakers in new ways.
Lecture held in english.
More info on the Cinematography here!
FILMTIPS
The Difficult Bride
Rubaiyat Hossain
France, Bangladesh, Portugal, Norway, Germany, 2026, 88 min, OV w/ENG subtitles
Thu, Oct 29, 2.30 pm: STADTKINO IM KÜNSTLERHAUS
Zai leads a seemingly perfect existence in Dhaka: she is rich, attractive, intelligent, studious and about to be married to a handsome, sensitive and equally affluent young man — an event to be celebrated by a lavish ceremony as an exercise to uphold tradition and demonstrate wealth. Surrounded by so much perfection, Zai starts to feel suffocated. The array of treatments she undergoes to be spotless on the day of her marriage is close to torture: her mind grows restless, and her golden life slowly starts to show some cracks. The beauty parlour morphs from a haven of feminine wellbeing into a rigid golden cage. Bangladeshi director Rubaiyat Hossain narrates the struggle of a young girl to extricate herself from the impositions of family and society alike. Zai’s perilous path to freedom is corporeal: trapped in an agonising routine that challenges her physical integrity and value, Zai’s body offers some hints of rebellion. Flirting with body horror and playing with colours, animals and textures, THE DIFFICULT BRIDE reveals the delicate threads that weave together patriarchy and social injustice, offering a meditation on the ultimate threat that women face around the world: the internalisation of sexism. (Rebecca De Pas)
Seize moments de ma vie
Albert Serra
France, Spain, 2026, 85 min, OV w/ENG subtitles
Thu, Oct 29, 10.45 pm: STADTKINO IM KÜNSTLERHAUS
As part of his Fassbinderian drive, Albert Serra cast Ingrid Caven in his controversial stage performance of Liberté at Berlin’s Volksbühne in 2010. When he adapted it for cinema, Caven was cut out of the final edit. SEIZE MOMENTS DE MA VIE was made to make amends, and may appear to be a straightforward concert film. But all the elements were staged by Serra, starting with the album Heidschi Bumbeidschi, 16 moments de ma vie—a collaboration between Caven and the band Molforts led by Marc Verdaguer, composer of the music for Serra’s films. The Catalan director then organized a theatrically lit, experimental cabaret show at Paris’s Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, where he filmed the then-86-year-old Caven moving through the autobiographical album. Caven inimitably sings of her early years in Saarbrücken, her wartime experiences, cinema, psychoanalysis and more, bathed in red light and shadows, accompanied by Molforts’ mysterious post-rock; the crowd is vocal, but never seen. A companion piece to TARDES DE SOLEDAD (2024) in how it concentrates on a performer at her artistic work, it’s Serra at his most Lynchian, and may as well be an extended Roadhouse performance in Twin Peaks: The Return. (Mark Peranson)
>1.5°C: Pyropolitics and the New World
Lukas Marxt
Germany, Austria, 2026, 73 min, OF
Fri, Oct 30, 6 pm: STADTKINO IM KÜNSTLERHAUS
The only direct commentary is the opening Michael Marder quote, which talks of our new era of “pyropolitics” and of the need to discern its manifestations and learn its language, a task that Lukas Marxt duly undertakes by way of a case study: the Los Angeles wildfires of January 2025. It begins by night with the fires already ablaze and efforts in full swing to contain them, a relentless battle of countless tiny skirmishes captured in static compositions of a precision that belies the volatile situation. Helicopters pass before horizons of smoke, firefighters infiltrate shadowy properties, twigs crackle, sirens ring out and radios buzz, although it’s the smallest, eeriest details that hit hardest, the torch passing over a swimming pool, the figure hacking away at the brush to prevent further spread, red lights flashing in the water streaming along the gutters. The two next sections function the same way, showing an emergency shelter and the smouldering streets at dawn: singed pets in little plastic chambers, truckle beds being sprayed with disinfectant, the unexpected pan that ends on a solitary chimney stack. If this is an exercise in close reading, each semantic unit indexes its own tiny universe and the world simmering beyond. (James Lattimer)
SOME OF OUR GUESTS TODAY
Anna Marziano
Director of
SCHIUMA DI MONDI
Zsuzsanna Király
Co-Producer of
Schiuma di mondi
Hassen Ferhani
Director of
ALEA JACARANDAS
Eva Trobisch
Director of
ETWAS GANZ BESONDERES
Albert Serra
Director of
Seize moments de ma vie
Montse Triola
Producer of
SEIZE MOMENTS DE MA VIE
James Benning
Director of
EIGHT BRIDGES
VIENNALE ZENTRALE
ROUND TABLE: INVESTMENT OBLIGATION – INSIGHTS AND CASE STUDIES IN EUROPA
5 pm – Free Admission to all events!
More than a dozen European countries already require streaming services to reinvest a portion of their local revenues into national film and television production, and the debate is currently gaining momentum in Austria. But what impact have such models actually had on independent production, world sales and auteur cinema, and what might a model tailored to Austria look like? With Nicolas Anthomé (F), Alexander Dumreicher-Ivanceanu (A/LUX), Christoph Friedel (D), Montse Triola (ES), moderated by Rebecca De Pas. In English.
In cooperation with Die Film- und Musikwirtschaft and WKO.