The official closing ceremony of the 60th Viennale took place on Monday evening, the penultimate day of the festival, with the gala screening of the film UN BEAU MATIN (One Fine Morning) by Mia Hansen-Løve in the presence of leading actor Pascal Greggory. The festival is happy about the great success of its anniversary edition: 73,700 people attended Viennale events this year, which corresponds to an occupancy rate of 71%.

"This 60th edition was a celebration of cinema and of being together,” said Eva Sangiorgi, delighted about the outcome of her fifth Viennale as festival director. “We all felt it, in the energy of the full cinema halls, in the intense talks between authors and audiences, in the expressions of all the people we shared so many experiences with through the films. We had great expectations – and they were definitely exceeded! The Viennale has shown that it’s a special meeting place for everyone who loves cinema, whether professionals or viewers, and it has consolidated its good reputation among national as well as international film events. Many visitors have already promised to be back in Vienna next October.”

A festival edition of anniversaries has come to an end. The 60th anniversary of the Viennale and the 80th birthday of Werner Herzog were two occasions used to create special, new memories as they can only be created in the context of a film festival, in shared experience and in direct, interpersonal exchange.

Not “just” showing films, but also contextualizing them and making them accessible in the context of current discourse is one of the tasks that the festival has always been committed to. 

The Viennale 2022 had a lot of highlights to offer. These included the opening gala in the presence of the directors of the opening film, VERA, Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel, and the lead actress Vera Gemma. As in the past two years and because it has been so popular, the film was screened in four Viennale cinemas on opening night.

Three entirely different Monographies, all very well received by Viennese audiences, honored three absolutely outstanding filmmakers at this year’s festival. The works by American director Elaine May shown at the Viennale 2022 reveal the subtle wit and feminist entrepreneurship already in the early history of Hollywood. Med Hondo, an exceptional figure of the pan-African liberation struggle, allows us to look deep into post-colonial traumas in his films. And on the occasion of the 100th birthday of Iranian filmmaker Ebrahim Golestan, the Viennale presented extraordinary (re)discoveries of films that oscillate between prose, poetry and anthropology.

Viennale audiences were able to immerse themselves in the shady worlds of spy thrillers as part of the Historiography dedicated to Argentine film noir. The retrospective on Kijū Yoshida, curated in collaboration with the Austrian Film Museum and the National Archive of Japan, was also extremely well received.

Austrian films were especially well represented at this year’s festival. Films such as ELFRIEDE JELINEK – SPRACHE VON DER LEINE LASSEN and EISMAYER received standing ovations, among others. The decision to show Ulrich Seidl’s film SPARTA, thus allowing space for a discussion about ethics and production conditions, caused a particular stir.

The Viennale itself was not only happy about enthusiastic reactions in national and foreign media, but also enjoyed to continue its own presence on social media as well as with exciting videos and podcasts this year.

 

 

In celebration of its 60th edition, the Viennale has asked six filmmaker friends, representing different positions of contemporary cinema, to create festival trailers. Their short works differ in tonality as well as emotion, but they all speak of cinema, its history and the world around us.

 

VIENNALE-TRAILER 2022: LE SOLDAT - CLAIRE DENIS

France/Austria 2022, 1 minute

Who appears when we see ourselves in the mirror, make ourselves visible? What inner experience do we hide from others? In a double hand gesture, Claire Denis reminds us at the same time of Jean-Luc Godard (1930-2022) and of the actor Michel Subor (1935-2022), who played in four of her films and with whom Denis also remained closely connected in private. Denis juxtaposes a scene from Godard's Algerian war film LE PETIT SOLDAT (1960/63) with a miniature from her hypnotic work BEAU TRAVAIL, wherein she directly quoted Godard's scene in 1999. Michel Subor starred in both films. Her most recent work STARS AT NOON is dedicated to his memory.

Viennale-Trailer 2022: WALDEN - RYUSUKE HAMAGUCHI

Japan/Austria 2022, 2 minutes

What else is there to be expected from Hamaguchi, who in 2021 alone made the two fantastically tender films WHEEL OF FORTUNE AND FANTASY and DRIVE MY CAR. If he can keep us in suspense for three quiet hours, he can also decelerate our pulse in two minutes. He just points the camera at it: water, waves, reflections of branches, sounds of forest life, a pure impressionistic work of pausing. And suddenly, in this meditative world that you sink into, a few wise female sentences from a bygone cinematic era sound and immediately feel very close - that's all the sky allows.

 

Viennale-Trailer 2022: SONGS FROM NAPLES - NARCISA HIRSCH

Argentina/Austria 2022, 1 minute

"Red lips should be kissed," Cliff Richard once sang, and that's probably the first association that comes to mind when confronted with the pursed red female lips that 94-year-old German-Argentine experimental filmmaker Narcisa Hirsch presents in close-up in SONGS FROM NAPLES. But then the red woman's mouth bites gleefully into a piece of raw liver with its dazzling white teeth, taking on something thoroughly predatory. Hirsch, who has repeatedly devoted herself to the themes of women, the body and sexuality in her films, here returns to a motif (and the 16mm material) from her 1971 film CANCIONES NAPOLITANAS.

VIENNALE-TRAILER 2022: INDEPENDENCE DAY - SERGEI LOZNITSA

Niederlande/Österreich 2022, 1 Minute

In the present context, the titular INDEPENDENCE DAY is anything but just another marker in the annals of history. Rather, such actually and concretely and very tangibly symbolizes the freedom of the democratically organized world in distress. Loznitsa, a tireless worker in archives and historical sites, is a virtuoso of actualization. Whether he is updating the archival or showing the archival context to the archival, we feel that it concerns us. That gesture that establishes the connection between the private and the political. A cinematic haiku that could also be a trailer.

Viennale-Trailer 2022: THE LIONESS - NINA MENKES

US/Austria 2022, 2 minutes

A young lady looks past us and the eye of the camera. Tension piles up. A troupe of dancers in sequined costumes just before the big performance, bustling. (Sacred) cows and wild monkeys roaming in a monstrous temple complex carved into the rocks, images of majestic tranquility flowing through. Two lionesses behind bars, a brief thought of Rainer Maria Rilke's poem "The Panther." A circus performer with four hula hoops at once in glittering garb. On the soundtrack, the world calls out to us that there is an incredible amount to discover in it. Now! Wide awake sensual impressions, one after the other like the blink of an eye, are after all the most beautiful experiences that cinema has to offer.

VIENNALE-TRAILER 2022: VIENNA WALTZ - ALBERT SERRA

Spain/Austria, 2 minutes

A heavily puffing fighting bull, a potency concentrate, moves as in an arena, irritated and ready to attack at the same time; however, he seems to turn his attention rather in a shadowy forest sometimes here, sometimes there. And instead of the opposing torero, a conspecific emerges, one could also say he overlaps with himself, equally irritated. The words "Sex", "Death", "Blood", "Bye" peel out one after the other from the black-green shimmer. One potency turns away, the other dallies indecisively in the face of danger. Cinema is a space of possibilities, often seducing us with its beauty. But it is about the fundamental - and about the consequence of the decision.

  

On this year’s Viennale poster we see a stately, roaring feline predator. Various artistic techniques are combined here: The brushwork emphasizes the curvaceous form and suggests agility and power, thus breathing life into it, while the print highlights the lively, iridescent color and refers to the pictorial symbolism of oriental art. It is a depiction from the early 19th century, which has traversed cultures and traditions and still has an extremely mysterious effect today. The original work was created by the greatest master of ukiyo-e art, Katsushika Hokusai, who transported historical and mythical subjects into the modern era by combining woodblock printing and painting, and also influenced 19th-century European artists – from Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Pierre Bonnard to Paul Gauguin.

Hokusai created a dynamic figure full of temperament, reminiscent of the movement that is also expressed in his masterpiece Under the Wave off Kanagawa from his famous Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji series. A roaring lion that awakens from its torpor and heralds a festival in which everyone passionately participates – the Viennale, that season of cinema and soul-stirring activity.

Like the shishi (i.e. guardian lion) that is supposed to protect against misfortune, this feline predator is the perfect talisman for a festival of inspiration and encounter; it represents not only the courage of filmmaking presented in cinemas, but also the profound, cultural and social bridge-building that it strives for, and for which a festival history now spanning 60 years stands.

Even today, in 2022, the Viennale holds its ground in a difficult environment and in a challenging time for human civilization, aiming to be a reliable place for exchange and communication.

The Viennale again welcomed many great guests who presented their films at this year’s festival. These included Joanna Hogg, Lav Diaz, Albert Serra, Eric Baudelaire, Peter Strickland, Hong Sangsoo, Mathieu Amalric and Lars Eidinger, who also acted as DJ one night and had the Viennale Club shaking.

 

VIENNA FILM PRIZE

The Vienna Film Prize, an award sponsored by the City of Vienna and presented as part of the Viennale, is given to a current Austrian feature film that was screened in the past year. The endowment of this prize consists of a monetary amount provided by the City's Department of Culture, as well as monetary contributions from ARRI Rental and Hotel The Harmonie Vienna. Furthermore, THE GRAND POST enriches the Vienna Film Award with generous donations in kind. Two prizes are awarded at the Vienna Film Prize: the prize for the best Austrian film and the Special Jury Prize. Each of the two awards is endowed with monetary donations and non-cash assets.

Jury: Gerald Bast (Rector of the University of Applied Arts Vienna), Ingrid Brodnig (author and journalist) and Edita Malovčić (actress and singer).

Best Austrian Film:
SONNE, Kurdwin Ayub, Austria 2022

Jury statement: SONNE is a film that comes along supposedly quietly, but then leaves a loud echo. The story of three young women who achieve a bit of fame via social media shows how diverse our society is - director Kurdwin Ayub skillfully manages to break with one or the other cliché. With simple but well-considered means, a lot of history is told, internal family but also social structures and conflicts are dealt with. The acting performance of the protagonists is remarkable. The result is an entertaining, but also multi-layered and socio-politically relevant film that is well worth seeing, and you wouldn't know that it is, strictly speaking, a first feature.

Special Jury Prize:
RUBIKON, Leni Lauritsch, Austria 2022

Austrian film can also dare to do something. Director Leni Lauritsch dares to think big. In her film RUBIKON, she turns her attention to the end of the world - and takes us into space in a technically highly professional narrative. It is remarkable how many narrative levels and philosophical questions are interwoven in this film. She has thus succeeded in making a contribution that addresses current issues of our time and uses the genre of science fiction to negotiate fundamental ethical questions.

DER STANDARD READERS‘ JURY PRIZE

The Standard Readers' Jury Prize goes to a film that does not yet have a distributor in Austria and is particularly recommended for a theatrical release in Austria. If the film finds a distributor, the theatrical release is associated with free advertising space in the daily newspaper "Der Standard".

Jury: Patrick Cassidy, Florian Schwarz, Daniela Univazo

DER STANDARD READERS‘ JURY PRIZE GOES TO:

PAMFIR, Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk, Ukraine/ France/ Poland/ Chile/ Luxembourg/ Germany 2022

Jury Statement: Like a drumbeat, this film drove into our bones, and we left the screening quite dazed and excited about what we had just seen. We were touched by the warmth of the characters as they try to survive in a corrupt society that wants to keep them chained in the service of the powerful. The hope that PAMFIR conveys through its striking images will stay with us for a long time. This film is not only a testament to the talent of its first-time director and lead actor, but also a time capsule for a country and community undergoing massive upheaval. It is an absolute pleasure and honor to award DER STANDARD READERS‘ JURY PRIZE to PAMFIR.

FIPRESCI PRIZE (PRIZE OF THE INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF FILM CRITICS)

The selection includes a number of first and second films by directors.

Jury: Susanne Gottlieb, Johannes Hagman, Kira Taszman

THE FIPRESCI-PRIZE GOES TO:
Cyril Schäublin, UNRUEH, Switzerland 2022

Jury Statement: Time is essential to the characters in this multifaceted story, but it passes at different rates and depends on the interests of the various factions. The time of unrest, of social upheaval, is reflected in the cleverly chosen title, which is in itself a contradiction. It suggests the unrest in the society, but tells this in a very unexciting way and refrains from obvious conflicts. For its depiction of an original international atmosphere in a small place, for its questioning of our understanding of history, and for seeing watchmaking through a prism of history, the FIPRESCI award goes to UNRUEH.

ERSTE BANK’S ExtraVALUE-FILM PRIZE

This year, the ExtraVALUE Film Prize, initiated and sponsored by Erste Bank, will be awarded for the 12th time. ExtraVALUE Film Prizes will be awarded in cooperation with the Viennale, the Deutsches Haus at NYU and the Anthology Film Archives. The Erste Bank ExtraVALUE Film Prize is awarded among the Austrian film productions screening in the Viennale program via an independent jury. 

Jury: Silvia Bohrn, Kulturmanagerin; Boris Manner, Philosoph, Kurator; Jed Rapfogel, Filmprogrammer Anthology Film Archives

Jury statement:
The jury of the ExtraVALUE Film Prize has decided to dedicate the award to two short films that deal with two of the most important and fundamental areas of human experience: Sex and Death.
 

The Erste Bank ExtraVALUE Film Prize goes to Eve Heller for SINGING IN OBLIVION
Eve Heller's short film SINGING IN OBLIVION uses a variety of techniques-observational photography, found images, photograms, and rich sound design-to conjure a meditation on death, memory, and transience. The focus is the Jewish Cemetery in Vienna's Währing district, which was partially destroyed by the Nazis and is now left to decay. Heller combines her own ghostly shots of the cemetery with photograms of organic materials and fragmentary images printed from glass negatives she discovered at a flea market. The film itself becomes a kind of photogram: a physical object on which the vanished life has left its imprint, thus speaking equally of presence and absence.

The Erste Bank ExtraVALUE Film Prize goes to Jan Soldat for BILND DATE
Although Jan Soldat's BLIND DATE is in almost every respect a completely different film from Eve Heller's SINGING IN OBLIVION, it is also concerned with the relationship between the immaterial aspects of human experience and its physical manifestations, in this case desire and the body. Working with his protagonists, Jan Soldat demystifies the sexual act and draws attention to what most other films on the subject omit: the deeply human mix of awkwardness, vulnerability, social protocol, and hesitant rapprochement that frames sexual intercourse. BLIND DATE is part of a series in which Jan Soldat presents a kaleidoscopic portrait of erotic practices. BLIND DATE is radical not for its frank portrayal of sex, but for its unabashed, unsentimental, yet empathetic curiosity about the experience of two individuals coming together to satisfy their physical desires.

 Located between Gartenbaukino and Urania, we invited you to our social programme with discussions and talks with film guests or just to chat in the upper floor of the Viennale Club in Falkestraße. At night, the basement became a party zone with DJs and live acts.

Director Joanna Hogg inspired audiences with insights into her working methods during a discussion evening organized with the drehbuchFORUM Wien, as did French director Alain Guiraudie,, who spoke to interested festival-goers about filmmaking and writing. Another highlight: Lav Diaz held a master class for the Austrian Directors’ Guild.

Presenting itself in a new and different way every year is the “matrix” that results from the entire annual program and the interplay of the selected films, and their associative dialogue with each other. A network of themes and thoughts that open up reciprocally with a social discourse.

Taking up these thoughts, making this network visible to viewers and inviting them to participate was something the Viennale tried to do again this year. At a panel discussion on the subject of “masculinity,” director Ruth Beckermann, filmmaker Albert Serra and moderator Andrea Braidt sought to explore changing and shifting implications in the cinematic context. In another panel on the topic of “narrative and manipulation,” also enthusiastically received, directors Radu Jude, Roee Rosen and Eric Baudelaire discussed pitfalls and ethical issues with Lisa Nesselson and the audience.