| Diagonale Award Innovative Cinema 2025 |
| by the City of Graz |

| BEST INNOVATIVE, EXPERIMENTAL or ANIMATION FILM |

Michael Gülzow
Der tote Winkel der Wahrnehmung

Jury Statement:
“What must happen for you to stop believing your theory?” With this question, two aspiring film students begin their interview with a conspiracy theorist in Michael Gülzow’s film Der tote Winkel der Wahrnehmung. We are in Vienna in 1996, and for a documentary, Alina and Flora set out to investigate paranormal phenomena. In an accessible, intelligent, and simultaneously humorous way, Gülzow shows the two of them at work, both in front of and behind the camera. Through clever editing, he blends found footage from that time with self-filmed material, dissolving the boundary between the fictional and the documentary.

By using these obviously employed techniques, the filmmaker avoids creating illusions; instead, he deconstructs the mechanisms of manipulation – and, in doing so, the functioning of conspiracy myths. Especially today, in an era where fake news have a profound influence and are used politically and ideologically, this topic is more pressing than ever.

Jury Innovative Cinema
Hephzibah Druml (Art Historican, Curator, AT)
Günther Holler-Schuster (Curator, Artist, AT)
Olena Newkryta (Curator, Artist, UA/AT)