For the seventh edition of the LUX Audience Award, five nominated films will be screened free of charge at Stadtkino im Künstlerhaus from Thursday, 5 November, to Sunday, 8 November. Your vote will also count in deciding the winning film!
Thursday, 5 November, 5.30 pm
UN ANNO DI SCUOLA (A YEAR OF SCHOOL)
Laura Samani | Italy, France 2025 | 102 min | OV w/GER subtitles
With: Stella Wendick, Giacomo Covi, Pietro Giustolisi, Samuel Volturno
The eighteen-year-old Swede Fred arrives in Trieste in 2007 to attend her final year at a technical high school and finds herself the only girl in her class. The three friends Antero, Pasini and Mitis are immediately drawn to her self-assured nature, but Fred’s desire to become part of their group begins to unsettle the fragile balance between them. A mix of jealousy, desire and unspoken expectations underpins this finely observed coming-of-age drama about friendship, gender roles and the difficult search for belonging. With great sensitivity, Laura Samani tells a story of growing up in a world whose rules do not apply equally to everyone.
Thursday, 5 November, 8 pm
TALK on the LUX Audience Award with Helmut Brandstätter
CALLE MÁLAGA
Maryam Touzani | Morocco, France, Spain, Germany, Belgium, 2025 | 116 min | OV w/GER subtitles
With: Carmen Maura, Marta Etura, Ahmed Boulane
For decades, 79-year-old María Ángeles has lived in her apartment on Calle Málaga in Tangier’s Spanish quarter. Surrounded by flowers, keepsakes and antique treasures, she has created a world of her own, observing the bustle of the city from her balcony. When her daughter Clara decides to sell the apartment and María Ángeles suddenly faces the prospect of losing her home, the fiercely independent retiree refuses to give up without a fight. With wit, determination and considerable charm, she pushes back against her family’s plans. This is the story of a woman who refuses to surrender to old age. Instead, in a time of profound change, she unexpectedly discovers new forms of closeness, a renewed joy for life, and even the possibility of love later in life.
Friday, 6 November, 5.30 pm
TALK on the LUX Audience Award with Andreas Schieder
FATHERLAND (VATERLAND)
Pawel Pawlikowski | Poland, Germany, Italy, France 2026 | 82 min | OV w/GER subtitles
With: Sandra Hüller, August Diehl, Hanns Zischler, Devid Striesow, Anna Madeley
Although Thomas Mann actually travelled to post-war Germany in 1949 accompanied by his wife Katia, Pawlikowski makes a dramaturgical adjustment by placing their rally-driving daughter Erika behind the wheel of the Buick in which they explore a country lying in ruins. She offers support to her father, support that is by no means always welcome, while also serving as his emotional corrective. These seasoned cosmopolitans look upon a country torn between the restorative climate of the West and the repression of the past in the East, where the cold wind of Stalinism is blowing. The director needs only 82 minutes to imprint the emotional texture of an entire era onto the screen. (Original German text by Gerhard Midding)
Saturday, November 7, 8 pm
SOUDAIN (ALL OF A SUDDEN)
Ryusuke Hamaguchi | France, Japan, Germany, Belgium2026 | 196 min | OV w/GER subtitles
With: Virginie Efira, Tao Okamoto, Mari Morisaki, Marie Bunel
Hamaguchi Ryusuke makes a satisfying relocation to Paris with this slow-burning study of radical empathy and mutual caregiving, coming to focus almost exclusively on the friendship between two women: French nursing-home director Marie-Lou (Virginie Efira) and Japanese theatre director Mari (Okamoto Tao), who is living with terminal cancer. They meet as Mari is putting on a show in Paris, while Marie-Lou, who speaks Japanese, is introducing a care technique known as Humanitude at the nursing home in the face of considerable resistance.
SOUDAIN fits into the female-centric branch of Hamaguchi’s cinema, reminiscent in particular of WHEEL OF FORTUNE AND FANTASY (2021) and HAPPY HOUR (2015), and not only because of its extended runtime. Based on letters exchanged between two Japanese women, a philosopher dying of cancer and a medical anthropologist, SOUDAIN is very much a film of talking and listening. Hamaguchi’s films have always been dialogue-heavy, but SOUDAIN takes this tendency to the extreme: for his female characters, conversation becomes the crucial vehicle for personal subjectivity, allowing these women to understand themselves, each other and, in a key scene, the sociopolitical forces that underlie all of our interactions. (Mark Peranson)
Sunday, 8 November, 8 pm
SKYRYBOS KARO METU (HOW TO DIVORCE DURING WAR)
Andrius Blaževičius | Litauen, Luxemburg, Irland, Tschechien 2026 | 108 min | OV w/GER subtitles
With: Žygimantė Elena Jakštaitė, Marius Repšys, Amelija Adomaitytė, Indrė Patkauskaitė, Gintarė Parulytė
What happens when the outbreak of a war in a neighbouring country coincides with the end of a relationship? Vilnius, 2022: just one day before Russia launches its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Marija tells her husband Vytas that she wants a divorce. As news of war and displacement begins to dominate public life, the two must navigate their own process of separation. Vytas temporarily moves in with his Russia-friendly parents, while Marija tries to find stability amid the demands of work, family and the consequences of this new reality. In a dry, understated tone, Andrius Blaževičius dissects the dynamics of a marriage caught between selfishness and solidarity, weaving a private drama together with the social upheavals of a historic turning point.
FREE ADMISSION TO ALL SCREENINGS
Tickets are available on the day of the screening from 30 minutes before the start of the show directly at the box office of Stadtkino im Künstlerhaus. Reservations can be made at stadtkinowien.at.
Vote at luxaward.eu.