Can one say there’s such a thing as the best film festival in the world? Of course – in Vienna. That’s where the Viennale takes place every year.
Pascal Blum, Tagesanzeiger, (Switzerland)
The Viennale is the Sunday of European film festivals, the most festive moment of the festival year.
(Giuseppe Di Salvatore, filmexplorer.ch)
The Viennale saw just the right mix of continuity and change under its new head, who unveiled a host of thrilling B movies and essay films.
Kieron Corless, Sight and Sound (UK)
The Viennale […] is among the most respected film festivals – and for its loyal visitors, it ranks just behind Cannes.
Jacques Mandelbaum, Le Monde (France)
By not being competitive, it can show the best cinema of today and always.
Fernando Lima, BAE Negocios (Argentina)
The festival is a vital and distinctive curator of film culture at a time when every such bastion feels not just valuable but essential.
Nicolas Rapold, Film Comment (USA)
When at their best, festivals like the Viennale make the past present. Rather than codifying pleasures, they offer the possibility of a spontaneous fresco of cinema, a panorama of forms and styles across history and the world.
Christopher Small, Filmmaker Magazine (USA)
The Vienna Film Festival is particularly good at bringing together the present and film history. It offered wonderful new discoveries to be made.
Susan Vahabzadeh, Süddeutsche Zeitung (Germany)
In terms of providing a window into the art of cinema, name me one other festival that outdoes the Viennale […] An event that truly merits being called a film festival.
Daniel Fairfax, Senses of cinema (Australia)
The Viennale is a highly respected cinematic event that primarily focuses on the art of film.
Susanne Burg & Patrick Wellinski, Deutschlandradio Kultur
The Viennale [...] a festival that genuinely cares about cinema in all of its forms and one that is shaped by a guiding aesthetic intelligence.
David Perrin, mubi (USA)
The Viennale may be the most cinephile festival in the world.
Julien Gester, La Libération (France)
The Viennale is one of the best film festivals in the world and an indispensable part of Vienna’s cultural life.
Demetrios Matheou, theartsdesk (UK)
The Viennale has done everything right once again. A phenomenon in our festival landscape. May it always stay that way.
Patrick Wellinski, Kino-zeit.de (Germany)
The Viennale is one of the world’s oldest and most influential audience-focused festivals, known for its carefully selected programme and uncompromising attitude to cinema, both contemporary and historical.
Marko Stojiljković, Cineuropa
As a kind of ‚festival of festivals’, the Viennale is one of the most esteemed fixtures in the world-cinema circuit.
Michael Pattison, slant magazine (UK)
