2023-10-19 17:56:05
Cast off! The Viennale, Austria’s largest film festival tanker, was launched on Thursday evening with the opening gala in the Gartenbaukino. At the 61st edition of the film festival, central works from the past few months can once once more be experienced in Vienna’s city center cinemas until October 31st. “Culture is a space of resistance,” said director Eva Sangiorgi, making it clear at the beginning of her sixth edition that politics was playing an important role this year.
“The current situation is so surreal and at the same time bitterly serious that it is impossible not to address it,” Sangiorgi made clear. You have to be aware of the privileged situation in which you live in Vienna. The festival director has chosen the Hungarian social drama “Magyarázat mindenre” by Gábor Reisz as the opening film, a decidedly political work. A school misunderstanding is growing into a portrait of the mentality of the entire country under Viktor Orban. “We tried to leave the usual context of left and right behind us and talk to each other,” said producer Júlia Berkes, outlining the filmmakers’ ambition.
“It is a film that is not supported in its home country,” emphasized Vienna’s City Councilor for Culture Veronica Kaup-Hasler (SPÖ) in her welcoming remarks: “Hungary has banned all artists. They are no longer supported. […] I think that should give us something to think regarding.” There is a need for social spaces that make it clear that no one is being left hanging – and the Viennale is such a space.
The final film shows that the Viennale has not completely shifted its self-image towards a political festival. Quentin Dupieux’s tragicomic chamber play “Yannick”, in which a theatergoer loudly vents his displeasure, is at least not a superficially political work. The program between these two chronological and thematic peripheral points is also colorful and varied.
Several internationally successful works that recently premiered at major film festivals will be shown in the five festival cinemas in Vienna. These include the current Cannes winner “Anatomie d’une chute” by Justine Triet with Sandra Hülser, the Venice winner “Poor Things” by cult director Yorgos Lanthimos and the documentary “Sur l’Adamant” by Nicolas Philibert, which was honored at the Berlinale . Foreign Oscar winner Ryūsuke Hamaguchi is represented with “Aku wa sonzai shinai”, while Wim Wenders is present twice as in Cannes and, in addition to his artist biography “Anselm – The Rushing of Time” regarding Anselm Kiefer, also with his enchantingly beautiful feature film “Perfect Days”. is to experience.
France’s film diva Catherine Deneuve has been announced as a star guest – at least for a short time – on October 26th, presenting a work as part of the Film Museum’s Raúl Ruiz retrospective. Further special sections shed light on Chilean cinema and Austrian film of the 80s; monographs have been set up for Nicolas Klotz and Elisabeth Perceval and Narcisa Hirsch respectively. And in the now reinstalled Viennale headquarters in the Kunsthalle, discussions, specialist events and music events are scheduled.
(S E R V I C E – www.viennale.at)
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