The 60th Viennale offers a rich selection of feature films from all over Europe

by Susanne Gottlieb

20/10/2022 - From today until 1 November, the programme will include several award winners from Europe, and specifically Austria, as well as recent discoveries

The 60th Viennale offers a rich selection of feature films from all over Europe

Eismayer by David Wagner

With the Viennale kicking off today, 20 October, and lasting until 1 November, there is a lot to celebrate, starting with the obvious 60^th anniversary of the festival. This will be reflected in the programme, as festival director Eva Sangiorgi has promised the “best film discoveries” and “important Austrian films”.

Indeed, the programme from Austria includes over 20 short and feature-length titles, including productions and co-productions. Among them are movies that have won awards internationally, such as Vera [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Tizza Covi, Rainer Frimmel
film profile] by Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel, which will be the opening title of the Viennale, and Mutzenbacher [+see also:
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interview: Ruth Beckermann
film profile] by Ruth Beckermann. The Viennale has also decided to include Ulrich Seidl's Sparta [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] in the line-up, which recently caused some controversy after a Der Spiegel article was published about certain practices on set. Also on the programme are Matter Out of Place [+see also:
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interview: Nikolaus Geyrhalter
film profile] by Nikolaus Geyrhalter, Family Dinner [+see also:
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trailer
film profile] by Peter Hengl, Eismayer [+see also:
film review
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interview: David Wagner
film profile] by David Wagner (which recently won in Venice’s Giornate degli Autori), Amina Handke's My Sentence, Claudia Müller’s Elfriede Jelinek – Language Unleashed, as well as the co-productions A Little Love Package [+see also:
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interview: Gastón Solnicki, Angeliki P…
film profile] by Gastón Solnicki and Jet Lag [+see also:
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trailer
film profile] by Zheng Lu Xinyuan.

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The retrospective is dedicated to Yoshida Kijū, a key figure of the “Japanese New Wave”, whose works have rarely been shown in the West. The “monographs” are dedicated to Med Hondo, the founding father of African cinema; Ebrahim Golestan, a director and producer from Iran; and Hollywood actress-director Elaine May.

The industry section includes talks with filmmakers Alain Guiraudie and Joanna Hogg. In addition, Filipino helmer Lav Diaz will conduct a master class. German filmmaker Werner Herzog will be present for a gala event for his film The Fire Within: A Requiem for Katia and Maurice Krafft [+see also:
film review
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film profile]. Furthermore, Romania’s Radu Jude will be present for the screening of his short film The Potemkinists.

For the benefit of its audience, the festival will expand its offering tailored to people with hearing or visual impairments, as well as for the deaf. To mark the special anniversary, there will be an additional publication, called Viennale 60. On Film Festivals. Including contributions written by film lovers from all over the world, it deals with the obligations, the necessities and the motives of festivals at a time of great change. It thus aims to look both to the recent and the more distant past, as well as to the future.

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