04/11/2011

The 49th Viennale (October 20-November 2, 2011) has been hailed a success. The organisers have confirmed that the number of visitors rose slightly, going up from 96,300 last year, to 96,700. The attendance level at screenings increased by 0.1%, reaching 79.9% (79.8% in 2010), for a slightly lower number of screenings (347 compared to 351 last year).

A total of 120 films, i.e. almost a third of the titles in the line-up, screened to a full house (compared to 123 last year). Among the special sections, the exhaustive Chantal Akerman Retrospective received 4,500 viewers. The event’s director Hans Hurch believes these results augur well for the next edition, which will mark the 50th anniversary of the Viennale.

Important parallel awards were presented at this non-competitive festival. The City of Vienna Prize for the Best Austrian Film of the Year was awarded to Markus Schleinzer’s Cannes contender Michael [+see also:
trailer
film profile] in the fiction category and Gerald Igor Hauzenberger’s Der Prozess in the documentary category (the film also scooped the new MehrWERT Prize awarded by Erste Bank, the festival’s main sponsor). Both films received the sum of €11,500.

A special mention was awarded to David Sieveking’s German/Austrian/Swiss co-production David Wants to Fly [+see also:
trailer
film profile]. The FIPRESCI Prize went to Hermes Paralluelo’s Argentinean film Yatasto and the Der Standard Readers’ Jury Award to Mexican director Tatiana Huezo Sánchez’s The Tiniest Place.

(Translated from French)