For over 35 years, VOLXkino has been traveling across Vienna, bringing cinema to where the city lives: into parks, onto squares, into neighbourhoods. In 2026, the mobile open‑air cinema once again stops in numerous districts—freely accessible, under the open sky, and with a diverse program from June 10 to September 19.
Following the successful launch of the collaboration last year, Viennale and VOLXkino continue their partnership: the GrätzlVIENNALE once again goes on tour, presenting selected films from the past festival edition directly in urban space. The aim is to make film and festival culture accessible—free of charge, in public space, and for a wide audience.
GrätzlVIENNALE invites audiences to rediscover cinema as a shared experience: as encounter, as exchange, as a moment that extends beyond the screen.
Dates 2026
A SIMPLE ACCIDENT
D: Jafar Panahi, Iran, France, Luxembourg, 2025, 104 min, OV with German subtitles
Fri, 24 July, 9 pm, 17th District, Dornerplatz
Vahid, who was once imprisoned and tortured by the Iranian authorities, meets a man he believes to have been his most sadistic torturer. He can’t be sure though, as he was blindfolded during the interrogations. Intent on revenge but afraid of hurting an innocent person, he kidnaps the man and seeks confirmation from other former inmates. The group keeps growing as they pursue a certainty that remains just beyond reach. A taut thriller, winner of the Palme d’Or, and Jafar Panahi’s most outspoken and explicitly political film to date.
IN DIE SONNE SCHAUEN (SOUND OF FALLING)
D: Mascha Schilinski, Germany 2025, 148 min, OV
Sat, 7 August, 9.30 pm, 16th district, Kongresspark
A farmstead in eastern Germany: a house, a barn, a yard, the nearby river. Families have lived here for generations, seen through the eyes of young women experiencing childhood and adolescence. The narrative moves between the 1910s, the 1940s, the 1980s and the 2020s, less interested in telling a story than forging links based on motif and mood. Time flows differently here—each episode can jump forward or backward at will. There is suffering, but also wonder; the mind has its own temporality, and each repetition still feels new.
THE CHRONOLOGY OF WATER
D: Kristen Stewart, USA, France, Latvia 2025, 128 min, OV with German subtitles
Tue, 11 August , 8.30 pm, 21st district, Neue Donau 1 – Usus am Wasser
For her feature directorial debut, Kristen Stewart adapts Lidia Yuknavitch’s experimental memoir. THE CHRONOLOGY OF WATER announces Stewart as a bold visual stylist, with abstraction and elliptical storytelling that honours the source material. Shot in 16mm with a jagged editing style that resembles shards of memory, the film follows Lidia through key moments in her life: traumatic childhood, competitive swimming, sexual experimentation, and addiction. Voiceover narration plunges the viewer into her stream of consciousness—an intense portrayal of a woman fighting to find a sense of peace.
LA PETITE DERNIÈRE (THE LITTLE SISTER)
D: Hafsia Herzi, France, Germany 2025, 106 min, OV with German subtitles
Mon, August 24, 8 pm, 10th district, Platz der Kulturen
LA PETITE DERNIÈRE follows roughly two years in the life of an intensely repressed French-Algerian teenager struggling to reconcile her lesbian identity with her religious upbringing and her family’s expectations. Herzi’s take on sexuality is subtle and elegantly drawn to echo the protagonist’s ambivalent journey through high school and college. A coming‑of‑age film that understands personal growth as a perpetual back and forth between desire and fear.
AFFEKSJONSVERDI (SENTIMENTAL VALUE)
D: Joachim Trier, Norway, France, Denmark, Germany 2025, 134 min, OV with German subtitles
Sat, September 12, 7.30 pm, 3rd district, Schweizergarten
Winner of the Grand Prix at Cannes, this intergenerational drama follows Nora, a stage actress, whose estranged father reappears offering her a role in his comeback film. When she refuses, he casts a Hollywood star instead, turning the family home into a film set. Brimming with familial resentments and artistic anxieties, AFFEKSJONSVERDI is an ensemble piece about memory, legacy, and the power of artistic creation to heal past wounds.
With these five stops, GrätzlVIENNALE 2026 draws a cinematic map across the city—from inner‑city parks to the banks of the Neue Donau. The program presents international festival highlights: works defined by distinctive cinematic language and a sharp look on contemporary life.
VOLXkino creates temporary cinematic spaces where neighbourhood and audience meet anew. GrätzlVIENNALE complements this format with the Viennale’s curatorial perspective—opening the festival beyond its traditional venues into the city itself.
A shared space for cinema emerges in motion: from neighbourhood to neighbourhood, film to film, and viewer to viewer.
Info and full program: volxkino.at