OUTCOME OF THE VIENNALE 2015

05 Nov 2015

OUTCOME OF THE VIENNALE 2015

The 53rd Viennale comes to an end with today’s gala screening of the film ANOMALISA by Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson. With a total of 94,100 visitors, the 2015 festival couldn’t quite reach last year’s record figure of 98,200.

The utilization of available seats decreased from 81.7% to 76.4%. From a total of 377 screenings, 123 were sold out.

“As in previous years, the Viennale was once again special proof of the diversity and quality of Austrian and international cinema,” says Viennale director Hans Hurch. “The fact that the number of visitors can’t be increased arbitrarily from year to year probably won’t come as a surprise to anyone. We do, however, consider it important to continue developing the Viennale’s distinctive feature of being a city and audience festival and an internationally acclaimed film event at the same time.”

Among this year’s special programs, three were particularly popular with audiences. The most successful Viennale 2015 Special was FLESH AND BLOOD, a program on Austrian genre cinema, realized in collaboration with Filmarchiv Austria. There was also great interest in GREECE – ONCE MORE WITH FEELING, a selection of contemporary Greek films and, finally, the tribute to the young Uruguayan filmmaker Federico Veiroj.

The program IDA LUPINO – HARD, FAST AND BEAUTIFUL and the homage to the Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira, who passed away this year, didn’t quite meet our expectations.

Highlights of this year’s festival included the visit of the great American actress Tippi Hedren and the screenings of Alfred Hitchcock’s MARNIE and THE BIRDS in her presence; the Austrian premieres of a number of outstanding national productions and the world premieres of films by Billy Woodberry, Jean-Marie Straub and Klaus Wyborny.

Organized in collaboration with the Filmmuseum, the great retrospective ANIMALS – A SMALL ZOOLOGY OF CINEMA, showing until November 30, will have an estimated total of 5,400 visitors.