The 57th Viennale will close today, Wednesday, with the gala screening of the film MARTIN EDEN in the presence of director Pietro Marcello. With one day less than last year, the festival posted yet another great success, with the attendance figure of 92,100 (2018: 93,200).
“It was a fantastic edition, with exceptional resonance from our audience and the international guests,” said Viennale directorEva Sangiorgi, happily. “I have the feeling that the Viennale is a family that constantly grows.”
One of the first highlights of this years’ festival, the second under the artistic directorship of Eva Sangiorgi, was the brilliant opening gala in the Gartenbaukino, with the impressive speeches by Chancellor Brigitte Bierlein, Vienna Executive City Coun-cillor for Cultural Affairs and Science Veronica Kaup-Hasler, and Eva Sangiorgi in the presence of the actress Adèle Haenel, andwith an emotional moment of remembrance for the late Viennale president Eric Pleskow.
The festival program of the past 14 days evoked extremely positive reactions from the local audience as well as from international guests. One highlight among many was the CINEMA LIVE evening in the Austrian Film Museum, with a double projection and the live scoring of films by Silvia das Fadas. The artist, filmmaker and musician Luke Fowler also presented a program especiallycreated for Vienna, with new films, and live music at the Viennale Headquarters. The premiere of Sabine Derflinger’s DIE DOHNAL, the film about the legendary Austrian feminist politician and minister for women during the 1970s and the 1990s, developed into a particularly thrilling evening.
A great success emerged from the Monograph on Angela Schanelec. The filmmaker, who has won prizes at the Berlinale, person-ally presented her films and would have been pleased with the enormous, ever growing reception over the course of the festival. Cecilia Mangini, an icon of Italian cinema, delighted the audience with her films but especially also with her unbridled energy and strong political stance.
From the festival’s perspective, especially pleasing was the fact that many visitors also made their way to the demanding talksand discussions in the Viennale Zentrale – as was the case with the talks featuring Angela Schanelec, the discussion about threat-ening conflicts and imminent wars, as well as a round table discussion on the topic of film critiquing.
The Retrospective O Partigiano! Pan-European Partisan Film, organized in conjunction with the Film Museum, garnered a great deal of attention – also international – with attendance figures reaching around 4,300, projected over the entire length of the program.