Who is the victim and who is the executioner, at the end of the day, in this singular version of events staged by Angela Summereder? Regardless of how things really turned out, no one is really innocent in Zechmeister. And, at the end of the day, the finger is pointed above all at a hypocritical and perbenist society, ready to accuse anyone it comes across, just to see from afar what consequences will arise from certain actions.
In the unusual form of a road movie, Please hold the Line takes us on a journey from Moldova to Romania, not forgetting Ukraine and Bulgaria. Central theme: telecommunications and how much they have influenced us and changed the way we live.
The inner torments and problems of young Hermann are staged in Clinch with a directorial approach in which the simple observation of everyday life acts as a perfect co-star, a successful counterpoint to the troubled events of the protagonist himself. All with a touch of wisdom in contemplating life and its placid flow, following the natural course of events.
On the occasion of the Viennale 2020, directors Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel presented to the audience their newest film, Notes from the Underworld (original title: Aufzeichnungen aus der Unterwelt), already selected at the Berlinale 2020, within the Panorama section. Cinema Austriaco had the opportunity to meet them and learn more about this new work and, more generally, about their career and their way of relating to the seventh art. Interview by Marina Pavido.
Jesus of Ottakring, the brilliant debut feature by WIlhelm Pellert, points the finger at a hypocritical and perbenist society, which dangerously tends to marginalise those considered ‘different’, which at all costs looks for a scapegoat to blame for everything, but which, at the same time, desperately needs a guide, someone to idolise.
Constant, pounding sounds, especially in the first part, are the absolute protagonists in Magic Glass, Mansur Madavi’s debut film, which for certain aspects even reminds us of John Carpenter’s They Live, as well as of Jacques Tati’s Playtime. And when the protagonist finally seems to break out of that vicious circle that is the unhealthy, capitalist society, he seems to everyone to be insane, potentially dangerous to himself and others.
Characterised by a frenetic and intense montage, together with a musical score that increases a constant suspense in the spectator, Wood is made by three filmmakers – Ebba Sinziger, Michaela Kirst and Monica Lazurean-Gorgan – in order to convey three points of view that come together towards a unique conclusion, with the main goal of making the world realise the danger of certain realities.
Always the storyteller of a world unknown to most, of the world of the outsiders, of those who are marginalised by society because they are considered ‘different’, ‘perverse’, ‘sick’, the young German documentary filmmaker Jan Soldat, in his Resident Ground Floor, takes us by the hand into Heiko’s everyday life – letting him confide and show himself as he is – proving to be as detached as necessary, but also incredibly close to his protagonist.
Herbert Holba’s cinema, as well as that of many of his colleagues and friends, marks with The First Day the beginning of a new Austrian film movement, in which an attempt was made to break away from national film canons by trying new ways of staging, new ways of understanding the seventh art, new ways of experimenting. And this, then, is also the case with The First Day, set in a no-man’s-land between yesterday and tomorrow and drawing heavily from yesterday to tell of an unusual, possible tomorrow.
Zaho Zay is immediately striking for his strongly contemplative approach. An approach that makes long silences and images in which the places, together with objects, are treated as real characters, its strong point. An approach devoid of any musical score, with the exception of a few rigorously diegetic songs.