Everything is floating in a timeless dimension in Vergiss Sneider!, Götz Spielmann’s medium-length graduation film. And next to a dark humour in the background, next to a subtle as well as vibrant eroticism, next to characters whose obsessions are taken to the extreme, we see a theatrical mise-en-scène that clearly refers to the Theatre of the Absurd, without forgetting Roman Polanski himself or even the science fiction films of the glorious Hollywood of the 1950s and 1960s.
Austrian director, screenwriter and film critic Veronika Franz will be part of the Jury for the competition at the 77th Venice Film Festival. Among the films in the running for the coveted Golden Lion will be Quo vadis, Aida?, directed by renowned Bosnian director Jasmila Zbanic, and a co-production between Bosnia and Herzegovina, Austria, Romania, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, France and Norway.
Minderjärige klagen an, while partly retaining the original intentions of Harald Röbbeling’s excellent Asphalt (since it is in fact a much more softened reworking of it), is much weaker, much less incisive than the original and decidedly uncohesive, with a frame story that seems almost artificial, to the point of making it scarcely credible.
Asphalt takes its cue from some real-life stories and adopts a mise-en-scene that closely resembles Neorealism. And so, the result is a film divided into five episodes, incredibly rational in its irrationality. A film that openly speaks out against the war and – although the war has been over for many years now – points the finger directly at a hypocritical and conservative society.
This brilliant Caviar – Elena Tikhonova’s second feature – boasts rhythms that are well marked both by an expert and self-conscious direction – complete with short animation inserts and Tarantino-like titling – and by an appropriate, lively and distinctive, but never over the top, musical score.
Throughout his life, Helmut Qualtinger confirmed himself as one of the most brilliant minds in the post-war art scene. And his very personal way of pointing the finger at a hypocritical and conservative society has inspired – and continues to inspire – many other young artists.
If in Austria, the first production companies were founded relatively late compared to the rest of the world, only a few years after the seventh art had also spread nationally, people had to deal with a highly dramatic and unexpected event: the outbreak of World War I.
Although Cappuccino Melange, in order to accentuate the differences between the two protagonists, plays a lot on clichés, often excessively caricaturing its characters and sometimes even seeming excessive and unbelievable, on the whole the adventures of the two bizarre protagonists work. And they do so especially in the details.
We are spared nothing, during the screening of Meatgrinder. The director, with an extremely essential approach, gets straight to the point. And, likewise, a harsh, deliberately dirty aesthetic is perfectly appropriate for what Houchang Allayari wanted to denounce in this short but important film of his.
Anders essen – Das Experiment, aims for extreme clarity in order to make us understand the consequences of our ‘irresponsible’ feeding. Thus, starting from the premise that we need a field of about 4400 square metres for our daily food, if everyone on earth ate as we do, we would need a whole other planet in order to limit as much as possible our impact on the environment. Yet, something can be done.