V'25 Festivalinfo
OCTOBER 18 TO 28
The 63rd Viennale celebrates its official closing today, Tuesday, October 28, 2025, with the gala screening of GEU JAYEONI NEGE MWORAGO HANI (WHAT THIS NATURE TELLS YOU) by Hong Sangsoo. Already, we look back with great joy on almost two weeks of festival events, which this year were particularly rich in highlights and special moments.
We are very pleased that the cinematic excitement and tension that spreads across the city during the Viennale is also reflected in the visitor numbers. Over the 13 festival days, 78,600 tickets were sold for Viennale film screenings, corresponding to an occupancy rate of 78.3%. This means that 2,800 more tickets were sold this year than last year.
“This edition was simply overwhelming”, Viennale director Eva Sangiorgi looks back on the festival with enthusiasm. “I felt a lively energy, a continuous dialogue between the films in the program, the audience, and the guests. This year there were particularly many – and they all showed great openness and generosity. The desire to engage with our time is enormous, and cinema proves to be a uniquely strong and privileged medium. The Viennale is the ideal place where all this can happen. It brought us together for thirteen days – and that has deep meaning and undeniable relevance.”
The series of extraordinary moments of this festival edition began already at the opening. “The Viennale is always the most beautiful narrative of a film year”, German filmmaker Christian Petzold had praised when he was introduced last May as the new Viennale president. Now he was personally in Vienna, opening the narrative at the Gartenbaukino with his wonderful new film MIROIRS NO. 3 and delighting audiences and press in the following days with thoughtful reflections on cinema and the state of the world – as well as with subtle humor.
Naturally, the big names drew special attention, world film stars who share one thing in common: genuine love for cinema. It is therefore no surprise that Juliette Binoche, John C. Reilly and Willem Dafoe thoroughly enjoyed their stay in Vienna and their Viennale screenings, appreciating the festival for its passion for film and cinephile audience – and expressing this as well.
A particularly charged highlight was also the premiere of THE SOUFFLEUR in the presence of Willem Dafoe, who shot this film in Vienna a year ago with director Gastón Solnicki – with the Hotel Intercontinental as a central protagonist. Dafoe also took the opportunity to make an unannounced appearance at LATE FAME by Kent Jones, joining the Q&A after the screening.
Many other major figures of world cinema honored us this year and presented their films personally in Vienna. Mascha Schilinski, whose extraordinary film IN DIE SONNE SCHAUEN, among other awards, was honored in Cannes and submitted for Germany in the Oscars, came to Vienna as did German directing icon Edgar Reitz with the current film LEIBNIZ – CHRONIK EINES VERSCHOLLENEN BILDES – with outstanding actors Aenne Schwarz and Viennale fan Lars Eidinger, who once again did not miss the chance to rock one of the festival parties as DJ.
While Italian filmmaker Pietro Marcello with his new film DUSE, which raises pressing questions about the relationship between art and politics, created another cinematic highlight, the outstanding Argentine director Lucrecia Martel thrilled audiences and press with her first documentary NUESTRA TIERRA, in which she explores Argentina’s colonial legacy, and an exciting, detailed talk about screenwriting at the Metro Kino Salon. This, like the other two talks held there, was fully booked. No wonder: on the one hand, filmmakers Eva Neymann, Olga Kosanović and Lisa Polster discussed cinematic forms of resistance with Andrea Ernst; on the other, one of the most outstanding directors of current genre cinema could be experienced live in conversation: Julia Ducournau, who presented her current film ALPHA in Vienna.
Besides the many “major” films in the main program, which, as expected, were audience magnets – including Yorgos Lanthimos’ BUGONIA, Jim Jarmusch’s FATHER MOTHER SISTER BROTHER or AFTER THE HUNT by Luca Guadagnino, to name just a few – the programs perceived as “smaller” were also enthusiastically received by the Viennese audience. The program curated by the Filmarchiv Austria on Austrian filmmaker Angela Summereder convinced with very good attendance, as did Historiography: Newly Restored and the very special cinematography GASPARCOLOR, which exceeded our expectations.
In this context, the extraordinary program on Dutch filmmaker Digna Sinke deserves special recognition, having become a real discovery for many local and international cinema lovers. It was widely talked about, and the international industry took note – apparently retrospectives of Sinke’s work are already planned in other countries!
A very special highlight was this year’s Retrospective by the Viennale and the Austrian Film Museum. The work of French filmmaker Jean Epstein, who bridged avant-garde experiments and poetic realism, is already a special treat and hardly ever seen in cinemas. In Vienna, however, each of his silent films was accompanied by carefully selected live music – a true cinematic sensation, enthusiastically received and widely discussed.
Last but not least, we would like to highlight two special screenings that have never been held in this form before and proved to be a great success: at the FILMMATINEE DER ERSTE BANK, a silent film classic by John Ford met live avant-garde music in cooperation with Wien Modern with overwhelming effect. And our first-ever screening specifically for young audiences at a special rate, the wonderful animated film ARCO, demonstrated that even cinephiles from eight years old can be excited about the Viennale.
It was an exciting, wonderful festival in 2025. We also thank the national and numerous international media for their strong interest and great feedback on this year’s festival and look forward immensely to the 64th Viennale 2026!
