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.
Perfectly according to the poetics of Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala, The Sinful Women of Höllfall mainly plays with feelings, fears and suggestions experienced by the characters themselves. What is staged is, in fact, the very fear of the Trud and the deep sense of guilt that such a legend has managed to generate in the past.
Everything, from the very beginning, is charged with an unsettling religiosity, in The Lodge. A dark, judgmental religiosity that instils terror from the very first minutes. Large paintings depicting sacred images and severe crucifixes seem to continuously observe the protagonists. And a gloomy light, which strongly contrasts with the overexposed white of the immense expanse of snow surrounding the house, becomes the main protagonist of the entire feature film.
Looking back over the history of cinema, one cannot fail to notice the large number of Austrian women directors – contemporary and past – who have contributed (and still contribute) to an ever richer and more varied filmography that is indeed little known, but also incredibly diversified and full of surprises.
The controversial Goodnight Mommy created something new by combining aesthetics and storytelling and drawing on the canons of expressionism.