Austria

  • Christoph Stark – Tabu – Es ist die Seele ein Fremdes auf Erden (2011)

    2011-2020AustriaChristoph StarkDrama

    Synopsis
    The Austrian expressionist poet Georg Trakl was in love with his sister. And she loved him back. Their relationship became sexual and caused quite a stir in the local society. But when his sister asked him to flee with her to Australia where no one knew them and they could live as husband and wife, he refuse for he could not live without the beauty of the German language. Torn between his love for words and his love for Grete, Georg turned to drugs and entered a downward spiral.
    (imdb)Read More »

  • Franz Antel – Der Bockerer AKA The Stubborn Mule (1981)

    1981-1990AustriaDramaFranz Antel

    Quote:
    The story of the Viennese butcher Karl Bockerer from the moment the Nazis took power until their end. He and his family are no noble men, and they all don’t seem to be gifted with wisdom. But while the rest of his family follows the Fuehrer, Karl Bockerer refuses to get assimilated by the new system. With his aggressive but charming behavior but also with a whole lot of luck he survives through the years…Read More »

  • Arman T. Riahi – Fuchs im Bau AKA Fox in a Hole (2020)

    2011-2020Arman T. RiahiAustriaDrama

    “An intense and unrelenting film with an excellent cast…” ~Cineuropa

    Synopsis:
    When Fuchs starts his new job as a teacher in a prison school, replacing the old and unconventional teacher Berger against her will, he is forced to confront his biggest fear, triggered by the mysterious, withdrawn inmate Samira.Read More »

  • Michael Haneke – 71 Fragmente einer Chronologie des Zufalls AKA 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (1994)

    1991-2000ArthouseAustriaDramaMichael Haneke

    Quote:
    The simultaneously random and interconnected nature of modern existence comes into harrowing focus in the despairing final installment of Michael Haneke’s trilogy. Seventy-one intricate, puzzlelike scenes survey the routines of a handful of seemingly unrelated people—including an undocumented Romanian boy living on the streets of Vienna, a couple who are desperate to adopt a child, and a college student on the edge—whose stories collide in a devastating encounter at a bank. The omnipresent drone of television news broadcasts in 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance underscores Haneke’s vision of a numb, dehumanizing world in which emotional estrangement can be punctured only by the shock of sudden violence.Read More »

  • Robert Wiene – Orlacs Hände AKA The Hands of Orlac [Murnau Foundation Cut] (1924)

    1921-1930AustriaHorrorMysteryRobert Wiene

    A world-famous pianist loses both hands in an accident. When new hands are grafted on, he doesn’t know they once belonged to a murderer.Read More »

  • Claus Peymann – Thomas Bernhard: Die Jagdgesellschaft AKA The Hunting Party (1974)

    1971-1980AustriaClaus PeymannDramaPerformance

    Thomas Bernhard’s “Die Jagdgesellschaft”
    Directed by Claus Peymann
    Recorded in 1974 at Burgtheater Vienna

    The bark-beetle has invaded the big forest of the general, just as a fatal illness has into the body of its owner. The general is suffering from eye cataract, preventing him from seeing the symptoms of the trees’ decline, just as he is unable to see his own rottening. His wife and the writer discuss these circumstances for two scenes, until the general discovers the fact himself in the third one. Now he is going to take appropriate action.
    “The actors this evening were of peerless mastery. It’s impossible to imagine a better realization of this piece!” Frankfurter Allgemeine NewspaperRead More »

  • Michael Haneke – Der siebente Kontinent AKA The Seventh Continent (1989)

    1981-1990ArthouseAustriaDramaMichael Haneke

    Quote:
    The day-to-day routines of a seemingly ordinary Austrian family begin to take on a sinister complexion in Michael Haneke’s chilling portrait of bourgeois anomie giving way to shocking self-destruction. Inspired by a true story, the director’s first theatrical feature finds him fully in command of his style, observing with clinical detachment the spiritual emptiness of consumer culture—and the horror that lurks beneath its placid surfaces. The Seventh Continent builds to an annihilating encounter with the televisual void that powerfully synthesizes Haneke’s ideas about the link between violence and our culture of manufactured emotion.Read More »

  • Wilhelm Roth – Die Erben von Papas Kino aka The Heirs of Daddy’s Cinema (1968)

    1961-1970AustriaDocumentaryShort FilmWilhelm Roth

    Documentary which take as subject the Oberhausen Group and New German Cinema, and some of those who followed in their footsteps.
    It contains a glimpse of a very young Werner Herzog, here predicting the rise of home video long before the technology entered the mainstream.
    With Rob Houwer, Hans Rolf Strobel, Peter Schamoni, Norbert Kückelmann, Alexander Kluge, Marran Gosov, Werner Herzog, Edgar Reitz, Hans Toussaint, Hans Pflüger, Fred Hoffmann, Edgar Reitz – Produced by: WDS-Film for ORFRead More »

  • Ulrich Seidl – Hundstage AKA Dog Days (2001)

    2001-2010ArthouseAustriaDramaUlrich Seidl

    Quote:
    Dog Days is an incredible film, though what it has to offer will certainly not be appreciated by every viewer. This is not to be meant as condescending – I simply mean not everyone will enjoy Ulrich Seidl’s aesthetics which have more than a little in common with Von Trier’s Domga 95 movement. Though Seidl doesn’t explicitly articulate his aesthetics the way Von Trier does, it features the same sense of realism. The characters are mostly non-actors wearing their own clothes and without makeup (except where diegetically necessary). The acting is very raw with many scenes calling for displays of intense emotional pain. There is no non-diegetic music. The film is shot entirely with hand-held DV. The film is, however, very aesthetically appealing. There are many beautiful, sun-drenched compositions, even if all the characters are sweating!Read More »

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