Excellent news on the Austrian entry for Best International Feature Film: THE DEVIL'S BATH by Veronika Franz & Severin Fiala sweeps three major awards at the Sitges Festival Cinema Fantàstic de Catalunya Oct. 3 to 13), the world’s most prestigious showcase of fantasy and horror movies:

• Best Feature Film
• José Luis Guarner Critics' Award
• Carnet Jove Jury Award

• MOON by Kurdwin Ayub (WP Locarno),
• THE DEVIL’S BATH by Veronika Franz & Severin Fiala (WP Berlinale) and
• THE VILLAGE NEXT TO PARADISE (WP Cannes)

are the three Austrian films among the 45 films of the EFA Feature Film Selection 2024. MOON is also nominated for European University Film Award.
EFA Nominations will be announced on November 5.
The award ceremony takes place in Lucerne on December 7.

Long before the Beirut blast in August 2020, they had established a deeply-rooted connection to Lebanon: Nicola von Leffern and Jakob Carl Sauer waited several months after the gigantic explosion before they moved to the country. They wanted to get an idea, initially without a camera and later with one, of what such a traumatic event can do to a society already battered by crises. They spent three years accompanying several protagonists in their attempts at individual healing, completing TO CLOSE YOUR EYES AND SEE FIRE at precisely a time when the people of Lebanon are once again being plunged into a daily frenzy of destruction.

Pittu, a traditional game where the aim is to knock down and quickly rebuild a wobbly tower made of seven stones, comes to represent the rare but carefree encounters between Happy and his nine-year-old daughter. But the old Indian game also stands for his situation in life as an asylum seeker in Vienna. Because even though he’s been in Austria for ten years now, he never knows whether what has been built up today may not collapse again tomorrow. In HAPPY, Sandeep Kumar takes a look at the invisible existences of a city where life seems so simple.

a superb black comedy
Variety

A polished, slyly entertaining work
Screen Daily

sharp-witted, superbly acted black comedy
The Film Verdict

In the mist, contours are unclear; in the borderlands between two countries, it is differences that become blurred. In the village on the Czech-Austrian border at the centre of THE END OF SILENCE, war and political upheavals have repeatedly created savage rifts through people's living space. Trauma and taboo dictate the consequences to this day. Tereza Kotyk has drawn inspiration from the grandchildren of those who lived through World War II, known in psychology as “mist children”, to expose the violence and lift the ensuing veil of silence that has characterized the life stories of three generations of women ever since.

After rave reviews by the international press, Bernhard Wenger’s directorial debut PEACOCK took two of the independent jury awards:
·      Premio Bisato d’oro
·      Premio Fondazione FAI
Congrats to the director and the team of NGF Nikolaus Geyrhalter Filmproduktion
 
Nader Saeivar’s SHAHED (THE WITNESS) co-produced by Golden Girls Filmproduction,  is the winner of the main award of the Orizzonti Extra section.

MOON won four awards at the 77^th Locarno Film Festival:

Special Jury Prize, given to the second best film of the International Competition, worth 30.000 Swiss francs.
Europa Cinemas Label, awarded from cinema exhibitors providing support for the promotion of the film releases.
Boccalino d'Oro awarded by the independent film critics.
Special Mention from the Ecumenical jury.

Friendship, status, civil courage. There is no social marker that can’t be scrubbed up very nicely for someone prepared to pay the My Companion fees. Matthias is the top performer at the agency. He expertly adopts a new identity for a few hours every day, acting the role of the educated companion at a concert, the exemplary son visiting from overseas or the dad in a pilot's uniform. But he’s helpless when it comes to simply being himself within his own four walls. Bernhard Wenger's feature film debut PEACOCK spans social surfaces and traces the fault lines between the real and the fake with satirical humour.

Bernhard Wenger’s directorial debut PEACOCK is one of the contenders of the 39^th Venice Settimana della Critica (August 28 to September 7, 2024). Wenger’s first feature film, starring Albrecht Schuch and Julia Franz Richter, was produced by Vienna-based NGF Geyrhalterfilm.

World Premiere
August 31 | 13.30 | Sala Perla

Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s Berlinale Golden Bear contender, starring Anja Plaschg, is the Austrian entry to the 2024 Oscar race for Best International Feature Film. Inspired by historical records of interrogations, Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala employ the power of beauty and cruelty in THE DEVIL’S BATH to tell a story of confinement and liberation.

One hard blow catapults Sarah out of the ring and puts an end to her career as a martial arts athlete. She ends up being a personal trainer in the luxury villa of a wealthy Jordanian businessman, teaching three young girls the basics of martial arts. It doesn’t escape Sarah's senses that suppressed voices can be heard behind closed doors. In her second feature film, MOON, Kurdwin Ayub explores the sparse options of female agency and its ruthless limitations.

At first, Juri Rechinsky only went as far as the Ukrainian border, supporting friends, family and refugees in the first weeks of the war. But as he came to appreciate the almost inconceivable repercussions of the invasion on Ukrainian society, his need to risk a trip to the front became more urgent. DEAR BEAUTIFUL BELOVED documents the filmmaker's journeys to his own borders and into the invisible zones of the war region, along the grim routes of grief that has become an everyday phenomenon.
A talk with director Juri Rechinsky and editor Andrea Wagner.

• THREE PATHS TO THE LAKE (1976)
• LEMMINGS 1 – ARCADES +
• LEMMINGS 2 – INJURIES (1979)
• THE REBELLION (1993)

All the four of them,  early works by Michael Haneke,  were recently restored and will celebrate their first appearance on the big screen.

Two young protagonists and everyday life. Being alone at home. Being alone in public, outdoors. Sometimes looking for a connection – only to retreat again soon afterwards. In their second feature film, BLUISH, Lilith Kraxner and Milena Czernovsky explore an intangible state of being in-between after a period of social isolation. While their sensory images trace the vague moods of their characters, the fluid boundaries at the edges of the frame initiate a multi-layered encounter with other media and art forms.

What Gina wants more than anything else is for them all to remain a family. The nine-year-old girl is already taking care of her younger brothers. She’s also prepared to look after the baby that’s on the way. She does her best to keep an eye on her mother, who is in the later stages of pregnancy and suffers from alcoholism. In GINA, filmmaker Ulrike Kofler looks at three generations of a family where failure is perpetuated inescapably, addressing the delicate issue of what happens when the private sphere urgently needs help from outside.

Austrian filmmaker Jessica Hausner will be the president of the Golden Leopard-jury at the 77^th Locarno Film Festival (August 7 to 17, 2024).

Artistic director Giona Nazarro states: A vital and restless filmmaker, Jessica Hausner has created a diverse body of work reflecting the most hidden aspects of contemporary society with extraordinary depth.

Mamargade has no experience of long-term prospects; given the conditions of life in his Somali village, they are simply out of the question. But considering the consequences of his actions would also be against his nature. People here help each other wherever possible, fighting to get by from one day to the next. When his son's school closes, he has to make a decision to provide the boy with a better future. In his feature film debut THE VILLAGE NEXT TO PARADISE, Mo Harawe develops a gentle tone to tell of family and a solidarity that ensures survival in an unforgiving world.

Moscow's inhospitable streets and the stray dogs there have once again inspired Elsa Kremser and Levin Peter. In DREAMING DOGS, Dingo and his homeless mistress Nadja form an inseparable team; the filmmakers accompanied them over three years of an unstable existence. Against the harsh background of financial collapse and loss of livelihoods, a narrative emerges which engages fully with the animal and its impulses, attempting repeatedly to shake off customary connotations.

There's a strong sense of authorship in every scene, every decision.
Screen Daily

an impressively masterful first feature
Les Inrocks

a poignant debut
Variety

visually striking and masterfully told
The Film Verdict

THE VILLAGE NEXT TO PARADISE is part of the Un Certain Regard selection at the 77th Cannes festival (May 14 to 25).
Mo Harawe's feature debut is produced by Vienna-based FreibeuterFilm in collaboration with France, Germany and Somalia.
World Sales: Totem Films

In a windy Somali village, a newly assembled family must navigate between their different aspirations and the complex world surrounding them. Love, trust and resilience will power them through their life paths.

In her comedies, Eva Spreitzhofer aims to make people laugh together in the cinema about things that are harming society. And the issues have multiplied: global warming, Covid denial, social media addiction, transgender discussion... The filmmaker has extended Wanda's patchwork family from What Have We Done to Deserve This? as well as enlarging the complex state of public debate, ensuring that in HOW DO WE GET OUT OF THIS? the ideological sparks fly on Christmas Eve and yet a joint celebration is possible.