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What is worthwhile, it seems to me, is to seek out cinematographic diversity.
Lisandro Alonso
FILMTIPPS
La libertad doble
Lisandro Alonso
Argentina, Chile, Germany, UK, Luxembourg 2026, 100 min, OmeU
Fri, Oct 30, 8.15 pm: STADTKINO IM KÜNSTLERHAUS
Sun, Nov 1, 6.30 pm: URANIA
Alonso first came to prominence in 2001 with LA LIBERTAD, which chronicles a single day in the life of a solitary woodcutter. His debut feature broke new ground for Latin American cinema, even if most of the subsequent films that sought to emulate it amounted to little more than pale imitations. Twenty-five years later, Alonso returns to film Misael Saavedra. At first glance, little seems to have changed in the woodcutter’s daily life. His routines remain much the same, although a chainsaw has made his work less arduous. Time, too, has left its unmistakable mark on Misael’s body. But something else has changed: the country he lives in. The freedom of yesterday is no longer the freedom of today, stripped of any emancipatory meaning by a president who relentlessly bellows the word “freedom” while imposing ruthless cuts that leave countless people out in the cold, among them Misael’s sister, a patient in a state hospital. The sequences set within that institution resemble a tableau vivant of a spectral world, the microscopic view of a country deliberately blighted by structural adjustment carried out in the name of market freedom. Against this, Alonso sets another understanding of freedom, one grounded in responsibility towards others. (Roger Koza)
Violence du corps de l’autre
Denis Côté, Canada 2026, 118 min, OV w/ENG subtitles
Fri, Oct 30, 9.30 pm: URANIA
Sat, Oct 31, 11.30 am: STADTKINO IM KÜNSTLERHAUS
A solitary angel of death, Mira works for a shady company that helps people end their lives. She delivers a lethal drug to clients, ensures they use it effectively and witnesses their final moments. Constantly on the move and with seemingly no home to return to, she is herself like a ghost, drifting through other people’s lives and deaths with a blend of care and detachment—until she finds herself in a situation that makes her want to leave the business. Played by Denis Côté’s frequent collaborator Larissa Corriveau, Mira is at once elusive and enigmatic, existing beyond any comfort zone—a condition that is both the source of her liberation and the cause of her restlessness. Côté has long explored the everyday as a site of transgression, where unruly desire is enacted as either an act of personal revolt or an expression of communities in flux. In VIOLENCE DU CORPS DE L’AUTRE, he focuses on contemporary postmodern life as a fascinating interplay of mortality and vitality, decay and pleasure, where death is both a choice and a source of belonging. Shot on celluloid with its unpolished texture, VIOLENCE DU CORPS DE L’AUTRE captures this macabre existentialist experience with remarkable sensitivity and compassion. (Evgeny Gusyatinskiy)
Fever Dreams of Vasko Pregelj
Monography: Vasko Pregelj
Sat, Oct 31, 2 pm: FILMMUSEUM
Already in his earliest five 8mm films, Vasko Pregelj exhibited a distinctively forceful style that he was to rigorously maintain throughout his short career. Pregelj submerges the viewer deep into elaborate, nightmarish, grotesque worlds of his own creation and seems content to simply let us gasp for air without developing anything even remotely similar to a narrative or formal progression. Pregelj’s eternal funeral processions of strange beasts traversing dark dreamscapes are not so different from the earliest painterly short films by the young David Lynch made roughly in the same period, although they should not be judged for their aesthetic effect alone. While one could indeed potentially categorise them as the feverish, pessimistic product of teenage angst, they also contain enough political subtext for Pregelj’s films to be grasped as a decisive (and possibly Black Wave inspired) rebellion against state prescribed optimism in art. For two of the titles—SANJE and REKVIJEM—the final versions of the original soundtrack remain lost, so a new score was commissioned from the key restoration technician who also happens to be a musician (Tine Vrabič aka DJ Nitz), who, in the spirit of Pregelj’s visions, only worked with the original sound samples. (Jurij Meden)
SOME OF OUR GUESTS TODAY
Ira Sachs
Director of
THE MAN I LOVE
Radu Jude
Director of
LE JOURNAL D’UNE FEMME DE CHAMBRE
Sofia Bohdanowicz
Director of
PURE REASON
Laida Lertxundi
Director of
TITLE
Friedl vom Gröller
Director of
ES IST DA
DAS KLEINE BUCH
Jeff Daniel Silva
Director of
MARE SAPIENS
Aurélie Darbouret
Director of
MARE SAPIENS
Meritxell Colell Aparicio
Director of
LEJOS DE LOS ÁRBOLES
Ilse Hughan
Producer of
LA LIBERTAD DOBLE
Denis Côté
Director of
VIOLENCE DU CORPS DE L’AUTRE
Manuel Wetscher
Director of
EKLIPSE
James Benning
Director of
EIGHT BRIDGES
VIENNALE ZENTRALE
from 9 pm: FUNKHAUS SESSION 3: TURIST (LIVE) / C.U.N.T.S.
Turist is a Vienna-based psych-dembow project that combines the energy of a live band with the precision of an overdub session. Drawing on a wide range of global influences, the group creates driving instrumental music with danceable rhythms, psychedelic sounds and a strong sense of groove. Following the concert, the evening continues with C.U.N.T.S (Creative Unique and Notably Talented Souls) and an open rap cypher, offering a powerful counter-narrative to the male-dominated rap scene.
from 11 pm: BEIRUT GROOVE COLLECTIVE
As a musical tribute to the Jocelyne Saab retrospective, the Beirut Groove Collective invites audiences to an evening at Funkhaus Wien. Ernesto Chahoud grew up in the Beirut of the 1980s, the very city portrayed in Saab’s films, and has remained deeply connected to its music from that era to the present day. A club night that builds a bridge between the cinema screen and the dance floor.
In cooperation with FM4.
Viennale Zentrale at Funkhaus Wien
1040 Vienna , Argentinierstraße 30b
Freier Eintritt bei allen Veranstaltungen!