| Film History | Austria – A Satire |

The Festival of Austrian Film has always been a place of new discoveries and rediscoveries – not only in terms of the competition films. The upcoming edition will also feature two film-historical specials: Once again, the Film History section offers valuable insights into Austria’s present by reflecting on its cinematic past.

Diagonale is pleased to announce the first program in this series, including some films that have already been confirmed: Under the title Austria – A Satire, the festival dedicates seven programes to an exploration of traces of satirical work from 1976 to 1989 in Austrian film and television history. The latter in particular was a “golden era” in which humorous strategies as a means of criticising social conditions were able to find their way into living rooms during prime time.

“Comedy turns hierarchies upside down. It embraces the anarchic power of the physical and confronts the horrific aspects of history with a mocking grin. Austrian cinema has always had a unique relationship with humorous distortion: satire and the grotesque are favored tools for correcting the imbalances in the societal structures of their time. During the Kreisky years and beyond, a form of comedy with a subversive edge, even an enlightening agenda, began to emerge.Contemporary protest movements, the struggle for women’s and minority rights, the false promises of consumer society were addressed, as were the persistence of historical half-truths.” — Dominik Kamalzadeh & Claudia Slanar

Durch dick und dünn by Margareta Heinrich © ORF

The program spans all genres, with not only feature and television films but also essay and experimental films. Here’s a selection of the films:

Ernst Schmidt Jr.‘s critical yet affectionate homage to “his city” is the compilation Wienfilm 1896-1976: Beginning with a shot by the Lumière brothers at the Opera Intersection, Schmidt Jr. stretches a broad arc, culminating in the collapse of the Reichsbrücke and the occupation of the Wiener Arena – in between, we find Charlie Chaplin, H.C.Artmann, Ernst Jandl, and the twins of Werner Kofler, or, as film scholar Ulrich Gregor once put it: “130 more or less poisonous arrows into the golden heart of Vienna!”. The Staatsoperette by Franz Novotny became a national affair in 1977; the scandal surrounding its premiere went down in television history – there were bomb threats, cries of blasphemy, outrage, and even a parliamentary debate. The Aufziehkanzler (“Wind-up Chancellor”) on a unicycle still delights today, as does the rest of this bitterly funny satire, holding one fact or another. The brilliant duo of Helmut Zenker (screenplay) and Peter Patzak (direction) delivered a sharp satire on Vienna’s bureaucratic mentality, ignorance, and stupidity in Jetzt oder nie (1980), garnished with songs by Georg Danzer: 82-year-old Mrs.Mörzinger is asked to look after a newborn in a park, the mother disappears,and after various tragicomic twists, the realization dawns that one doesn’t get far in Vienna with common sense.
In 1986, Margareta Heinrich created an insightful satire with Durch dick und dünn, humorously questioning the lifestyle of the 1980s yuppie generation. Today, almost 40 years later, it has sadly lost none of its relevance, especially when it comes to the permanent self-optimization of femininity and body image.

Possibly one of the earliest examples of today’s popular reaction videos is offered by VALIE EXPORT with her film Elfriede Jelinek. News from Home 18.8.88: The future Nobel laureate watches the news and comments on them dryly, barefoot in a black armchair – a historical document, a self-reflexive metafilm. Der Einzug des Rokoko ins Inselreich der Huzzis (1989) by Andreas Karner, Mara Mattuschka and Hans Werner Poschauko tells the story of the power-hungry young Reverend M1Zimbe and his mission to impose his authoritarian beliefs on the fundamentally peaceful yet cannibalistic Huzzis, all against the backdrop of a simple cardboard set. The aim? To finally gain the recognition he has been denied by his mother! With plenty of irony and subtle humor, the three artists depict the story of a tyrant meeting innocent naivety, while also exposing colonial power structures.

The program is curated by Dominik Kamalzadeh and Claudia Slanar, with the Diagonale thanking the ORF-Archive and the Austrian Film Museum for their support. Wienfilm1896-1976 is presented in a digitally restored version by the Austrian Film Museum, and Der Einzugdes Rokoko ins Inselreich der Huzzis is shown in a digital version from the Austrian Film Museum, funded by the BMKÖS/Cultural Heritage Digital.

On the special program Film History Austria – A Satire, the second booklet of the Diagonale Edition will be published by Czernin Verlag at the start of the festival. The booklet includes essays, interviews, and short texts by, among others, Lucile Dreidemy, Stefan Grissemann, Bert Rebhandl, Lea Susemichel, Manuela Tomić, and Andreas Ungerböck.