OCTOBER 22 TO NOVEMBER 3
The 64th Viennale officially comes to a close today, Tuesday, November 3, 2026, with the gala screening of THE LONELIEST MAN IN TOWN by Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel. A festival full of highlights and wonderful, special moments is drawing to a close – and with great success.
With 78,800 tickets sold, the high level of the previous year was even slightly exceeded. 112 of the 330 screenings open to the public – more than a third – were sold out. In addition, almost 3,500 visitors made their way to Funkhaus, this year’s festival headquarters, to take part in talks and discussions with filmmakers and experts. Or to enjoy music and dancing at five nights of concerts and parties.
“I am still overwhelmed by these two vibrant weeks of the festival,” says Viennale Director Eva Sangiorgi, looking back enthusiastically. “It is an extraordinary privilege to be part of it. The positive response from the audience once again shows how important the Viennale is to this city and how highly it is regarded internationally – by the many people who travel here from elsewhere. We were able to welcome extraordinary, incredibly generous guests who were swept up in the enthusiasm in the cinemas. I feel that this year we have grown even closer: with our loyal audience, with young and very young people, but also with the film industry. Together with our industry partners, we created numerous opportunities for filmmakers and professionals to come together, meet and exchange ideas.”
The first truly special moment of this edition came right at the beginning. Since the Viennale was founded in 1960, the festival had never opened with an experimental short film. This honour went to Austrian filmmaker Johann Lurf, who presented his 21-minute work, projected in 70mm, at the opening gala at the Gartenbaukino. The fact that another Austrian film, Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel’s THE LONELIEST MAN IN TOWN, is closing the festival, creates, as Eva Sangiorgi puts it, “a connection between all the things that matter to us about cinema: on the one hand, the fascinating power of an art form that emerged from technology and has continued to evolve alongside it. On the other, great auteur cinema that captures reality in an unmistakable way, with humanity and poetry. Two of the most precious discoveries of the international film year – and, at the same time, a wonderful occasion to celebrate an extraordinary year for Austrian cinema.”
VIENNALE GUESTS
160 Austrian and international film guests
185 audience discussions following screenings
Above all, it is the filmmakers and actors who attend the festival in person that make the Viennale such a special film event. This year, too, numerous directors and actors made their way to Vienna to present their work in person and answer questions from the famously cinephile local audience. German directing icon Ulrike Ottinger returned, in a sense, to the location where she shot her new film DIE BLUTGRÄFIN, celebrating its premiere alongside her leading actress Isabelle Huppert and an extraordinary cast that included many local stars such as Birgit Minichmayr, Thomas Schubert and Conchita, aka Tom Neuwirth. Viennale Director Eva Sangiorgi also had the pleasure of welcoming major figures in world cinema, including Bruno Dumont, who presented his extraordinary film LES ROCHES ROUGES, as well as Valeska Grisebach, Victor Kossakovsky, Sergei Loznitsa, Andrea Pallaoro, Ira Sachs, Angela Schanelec, Albert Serra, Sandra Wollner, Florian Zeller and many more.
All V'26 photo galleries can be found here!
TALKS AT FUNKHAUS
\ For five evenings, Funkhaus became the popular Viennale party hub, hosting concerts and DJ sets. The talks and discussions held there also attracted enormous interest. Filmmaker Olga Kosanović moderated an engaging conversation with Moroccan director Laïla Marrakchi about writing for cinema between Morocco and Europe; a lively panel of Austrian and international producers discussed models for obliging streaming services to reinvest part of their revenues in national film production; friends and companions of the recently deceased Simon Field, the influential producer, festival director and founder of the magazine Afterimage, came together to remember him; and leading German director Volker Schlöndorff looked back on six decades of filmmaking in a conversation.
The conversation with Volker Schlöndorff and many other audience discussions can be found here!
BIG FILMS – SMALL PROGRAMMES
Alongside the many “big” films in the main programme that were expected audience favourites, including PAPER TIGER, CLUB KID, THE DEBUT, WILD HORSE NINE, EVERYTIME, BUNKER, as well as the eagerly awaited and completely sold-out surprise film, which turned out to be Mike Leigh’s new film TENDER LOVING CARE, supposedly “small” programmes were also very well received by Viennese audiences. The retrospective of Jocelyne Saab’s work attracted an incredible response, much to the delight of Mathilde Rouxel, the Jocelyne Saab Foundation expert who was in attendance. The programme of Abbas Kiarostami’s early films for children also generated enormous interest, particularly among our international guests, and brought people of all ages into the cinemas – from filmmaker Ira Sachs to the young daughters of visiting directors. More generally, the Viennale’s programmes and initiatives for young people, such as the Viennale Debut Card and the Young Audience Screening, show that the festival is on the right track when it comes to inspiring a new generation of cinema-goers.
VIENNALE: LOOKING AHEAD
We could say much more in retrospect about this 64th Viennale, now drawing to a close, but we would like to look briefly to the future: We are delighted that the Viennale once again succeeded in captivating Vienna’s cinephile audience while also leaving a lasting positive impression on international guests, as we have heard in many personal conversations and read in press reports. We see this as a mandate: the festival will continue to grow, evolve and put many new ideas into practice. In this context, we are pleased to announce that Managing Director Paolo Calamita’s contract has been extended by a further four years, until 2030.
Finally, we would like to thank the Austrian and numerous international media for their strong interest in this year’s festival and their wonderful feedback. We are already looking forward immensely to the 65th Viennale in 2027!