Austria Film Meeting

The Austria Film Meeting at the Diagonale is an open forum of exchange about possible courses of action in the areas of film, television, and cinema. It brings together people who are involved in diverse activities and debates at the interface of culture, art, business, and science. At the Austria Film Meeting, which is laid out transnationally and across the generations, genders, and branches, solidarity-based action and networking in the service of Austrian film stand in a global context.

Cinema, film, and television are currently confronted with major and fundamental changes. The transformation has ready promising spaces for manoeuver in narration, form, and use, when we are serious about the pluralist world in which we live. The Austria Film Meeting at Diagonale’16 therefore extends an invitation to a fundamental debate—with the demand for gender equality and diversity: the Diagonale’16 puts up for negotiation no less than the question of how we want to live—whether as filmmakers or film viewers.
How a society is compiled and how power is distributed in this, influences how films are produced and what films we are given to watch. Correspondingly, gender and life styles in film are connected with production and reception conditions. Successful international examples, from Anomalisa to Carol through to The Sopranos, Orange Is the New Black, Transparent, etc. show diverse concepts of life in the cinema and on TV.
In various discussion and action formats, the Austria Film Meeting pursues the question of what Austrian film and television production can learn by watching these successful models. How can diversity be aspired to and lived? What new potential is contained in motion pictures?
The Diagonale has positioned three films in the festival program in reference to the Austria Film Meeting.