In our VIENNALE DAILIES you'll find everything you need to know about what's happening around the festival!
When making a film, if I feel nothing in my body, I can't work. I have to touch. I have to feel. I never stop touching
Claire Denis
FILMTIPPS FÜR HEUTE
THE FENCE
Dir: Claire Denis
France 2025 | 109 minutes | OV w/ENG subtitles
Friday, October 24, 6.30 pm: GARTENBAUKINO
Tuesday, October 28, 6.45 pm: URANIA
Claire Denis’ first film shot in Africa since WHITE MATERIAL (2009) is a tantalising epitome of late style. An adaptation of Bernard-Marie Koltès’ 1979 play Combat de nègre et de chiens, THE FENCE takes place over 24 hours, mostly on a vast construction site “somewhere in West Africa”. Site manager Horn (Matt Dillon, channeling Clark Gable in 1961’s THE MISFITS) is awaiting the arrival of his young new bride Leone (Mia Mackenna-Bruce) when a local man, Alboury (an always welcome Isaach De Bankolé, wearing Saint Laurent) appears on the other side of the compound’s fence demanding the corpse of his recently deceased brother. He won’t leave. Sticking to a deliberately stagey mise-en-scène, Denis is not interested in escaping the suffocating atmosphere as much as transcending it with stylistic flourishes that contribute to a mounting sense of doom and unease. If THE FENCE’s thematic thrusts of postcolonial discontent and sexual tension might seem slightly overemphasised, they serve here as vehicles for Denis and Eric Gauthier’s indelible images, of a high heel stuck in the mud, the dangling strap of a dress, of bodies in motion, filmed by an artist never shy to turn away from the troubles that haunt us every day. (Mark Peranson)
romerÍa
Dir: Carla Simón
Spain, France 2025 | 112 minutes | OV w/GER subtitles & OV w/ENG subtitles
Friday, October 24, 3.30 pm: GARTENBAUKINO
Saturday, October 25, 11.00 am: URANIA
Carla Simón’s debut feature ESTIU 1993 (2017) fictionalised her own childhood, telling the story of Frida, a six-year-old girl whose parents have died of AIDS. Not strictly a sequel but nonetheless a companion film, ROMERÍA draws from a later chapter of Simón’s biography. In the summer of 2004, eighteen-year-old Marina, who dreams of becoming a filmmaker, travels to Vigo on the west coast of Spain to obtain a document from her paternal grandparents she needs for her university application. The trip becomes a sort of pilgrimage—the meaning of the film’s title—as she meets her father’s family for the first time. Eager to find out more about her parents, who were heroin addicts, she tries to ask questions but is met with contradictory stories and evasive behaviour, if not outright rebuffs. Confronted with this omertà born of stigma and shame, Marina is left to construct her own memories from the scraps of evidence that are left. Brilliant cinematographer Hélène Louvart turns the Atlantic Ocean and its myriad blues into a ravishing poetic backdrop to Marina’s journey of self-discovery, which Simón portrays with the kind of sensitivity and depth of feeling that can only derive from personal experience. (Giovanni Marchini Camia)
In the presence of Mitch Martin and Llúcia Garcia.
HOLDING LIAT
Dir: Brandon Kramer
USA 2025 | 97 minutes | OV w/ENG subtitles
Friday, October 24, 1.00 pm: STADTKINO IM KÜNSTLERHAUS
Poised, powerful, and richly nuanced, HOLDING LIAT offers a rare, intimate look at a left-leaning, open-minded American-Jewish family caught up in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks. Liat Beinin Atzili, a history teacher and mother of three adult children, was taken hostage during the assault on Kibbutz Nir Oz. Her relative, director Brandon Kramer, gained close personal access, and began to document their story just two weeks after the raid. He captures the family’s struggle with raw immediacy, as they navigate grief, fear and the possibility of bringing Liat home. An outspoken leftist and American, her father Yehuda takes action, travelling to Washington with his daughter Tal and Liat’s son Netta, who survived the attack, to push for US intervention. Against all odds, Liat is released two months later. Her return is marked by both relief and heartbreak: her husband Aviv did not survive. Despite all Lita has endured, she refuses to give in to bitterness, choosing instead to hold on to the hope of peace and understanding between Israelis and Palestinians. Her voice emerges as a powerful, urgent plea for humanity—a profoundly moving stand against violence. (Maria Giovanna Vagenas)
In the presence of Yoni Brook (producer), Yehuda Beinin and Chaya Beinin (protagonists).
PROGRAMMTIPP
Monography: Martina Parenti & Massimo D'Anolfi
Find the complete program of the monography HERE!
Read more about the monography HERE!
The essay as an attempt to circle around the great questions of humankind (about the nature of nature, of love, of death). But also: to search for answers to questions that (still) no one has asked. The directing duo Massimo D’Anolfi and Martina Parenti are committed to both poles and possess the indispensable prerequisite for them: patience.
Within scarcely two decades, their artistic form has evolved from an observation stemming from Direct Cinema (I PROMESSI SPOSI, 2007, about marriage-minded couples) into a characteristic signature in which documenting became composing, an arrangement of seemingly disparate things. The spiral-shaped montage of the enigmatic SPIRA MIRABILIS (2016) comes close to a visualization of thinking itself.
Camera, sound, editing, and production are handled by D’Anolfi and Parenti themselves in all their films. They shoot in archives—for instance, for moving images from the war in Libya—in the plant collection of a botanical garden, or in the storage of battered stone statues from Milan Cathedral. Images, (original) sounds, and (literary) texts are associated, sometimes with the use of spherical music, into multilayered viewing experiences.
In the presence of Massimo D’Anolfi & Martina Parenti.
SOME OF OUR GUESTS TODAY
Massimo D’Anolfi
Martina Parenti
Monography: Martina Parenti & Massimo D'Anolfi
Mitch Martin
Llúcia Garcia
Actors in
ROMERÍA
Gabriel Azorín
Director of
Anoche conquisté Tebas
Kamal Aljafari
Director of
WITH HASAN IN GAZA
Eva Neymann
Director of
WHEN LIGHTNING FLASHES OVER THE SEA
Isa Willinger
Director of
NO MERCY
Joel Alfonso Vargas
Director of
Mad Bills to Pay (or Destiny, dile que no soy malo)
Lee Anne Schmitt
Director of
EVIDENCE
PARTY TODAY
LEFTO EARLY BIRD / DIA (BOOSTER CLUB)
PRATERSRTASSE
from 11 pm
From Brussels, Lefto Early Bird has been blending genres in a unique way for over three decades. His sound unites jazz, electronica, techno, house, and hip-hop into a coherent whole. In radio shows on Kiosk Radio, The Lot, Worldwide FM, and NTS, he tells stories, connects listeners worldwide, and opens boundaries for new musical perspectives. As a curator, musician, and voice of the scene, he has had a lasting impact on the global music landscape. In their opening set, DIA mixes baile & Arab funk, rap, trance, gqom, bass, as well as Arabic and South Asian sounds.