The 70s – A Film Decade on the Move
The 1970s – A Film Decade on the Move
The year 1980 marked one of the most significant changes in Austrian film history: ten years after it was first announced, a film promotion act finally came into force, which to this day still provides the foundations under which domestic cinema flourishes. Its 50th anniversary this year is reason enough to take a look back at the Seventies, during which the Austrian film landscape had begun to organize itself and become more professional.
It’s not for nothing that the 1970s are considered the most liberal, most courageous and most experimental years in our film history – at least on paper, for most of the films and filmmakers of that time have long since fallen into oblivion. It was a decade in which commercial cinema no longer played a major role, and when a young generation dared to make a real new start. Their works often arose out of symbiosis with other arts – literature, painting, theater, music. Budgets were small and filming took place under self-exploitative conditions. The films, too, tell of breakthroughs and upheavals, in partly radical world views that don’t adhere to any established set of rules.
Filmarchiv Austria will present 5 out of a total of 15 programs during the Viennale. Numerous contributors will attend the screenings.