Shut up, the first: With the traditional opening gala in the Gartenbaukino, Austria’s largest film festival, the Viennele, launched into its 60th edition on Thursday evening. A good 120 films can now be seen in Vienna’s city center cinemas until November 1st. “Welcome to the International Festival of the Most Interesting Films of 2022,” director Eva Sangiorgi greeted the audience with a wink – in the anniversary year in the name of the first Viennele reflective.
In truth, however, the task of the festival is of course different. “A festival like that Viennele must offer space for confrontations,” Sangiorgi clarified at the beginning of its fifth edition. This is a challenge, especially in a time of comprehensive social transformation – and at the same time, the importance of culture is greater than ever.
“60 years Viennele means 60 years of views of the world”, Vienna’s City Councilor for Culture Veronica Kaup-Hasler (SPÖ) emphasized the international perspective of the film festival: “It’s not just regarding showing the most important films of the year quickly, but regarding telling stories from other continents .”
Sangiorgi chose the production “Vera” by the director duo Tizza Covi/Rainer Frimmel as the opening film this year. Both portrayed the Italian starlet Vera Gemma in a fictional story, who, like the filmmakers, was present at the start of the festival.
It remains to be seen how many people the festival will attract in what feels like post-pandemic times. In any case, around 100,000 tickets have been issued, almost as many as before Corona. And the first impressions of the pre-sales were satisfactory, underlined the new commercial director Paolo Calamita in the APA interview shortly before the festival started: “The numbers were very, very good. Ultimately, they reached the pre-crisis level.”
In any case, cineastes now have time up to and including November 1 to indulge their passion. The highlights of the program include Martin McDonagh’s friendship drama “The Banshees of Inisherin” with Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, David Cronenberg’s screen return “Crimes of the Future” or “Tori et Lokita” regarding two migrant fates, told by the Belgian brothers and Viennele-Stem duo Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne.
But patriotic film buffs can also look forward to the unusually high number of over 20 feature and short films from Austria this year. This also includes the drama “Sparta” by Ulrich Seidl, which was hotly debated following a “Spiegel” article on the circumstances of the shooting. Star guest Werner Herzog should also arouse interest. The cult director was co-director of the 1991 Viennele and will now be honored on October 25th with a gala and on October 28th with a reading evening in cooperation with the Volkstheater.
This year’s only indirect conclusion including the awarding of the film prizes will be celebrated on October 31st, with Mia Hansen-Løve’s “Un beau matin” being honored here as a gala film. Incidentally, the conclusion is indirect because, for the first time, films are available for the last time on the day following the closing gala, on All Saints’ Day.
