Kollektion Diagonale’20 – „Die Unvollendete“ at the Viennale

The Trouble With Being Born © PanamaFilm

For the first time, Austria’s two largest film festivals are collaborating contentwise. From October 25 to November 1, the Festival of Austrian Film will present in the Viennale festival cinemas Kollektion Diagonale’20 – “Die Unvollendete” (Diagonale’20 Collection – “The Unfinished”), which includes six feature films and a program comprising eight short films.

The focused program will show films from Austria that were meant to have their Austrian premieres in Graz in March – among them, Sandra Wollner’s internationally celebrated feature film The Trouble With Being Born, which was honored with the Grand Diagonale Prize of the Province of Styria, Raphaela Schmid’s tragicomic short feature film Fische (Diagonale Prize for Short Feature), and Constanze Ruhm’s cinematic essay awarded with the Diagonale Prize for Innovative Cinema by the City of Graz, GLI APPUNTI DI ANNA AZZORI – Uno specchio che viaggia nel tempo, which after its world premiere in the Forum of the Berlinale, now – like many other works in the collection – is finally available for viewing in Austrian theaters.

“Back in the cinema, the current selection is testimony to the diversity of Austrian film in both content and form: accelerated precise observation here, investigative call for civil disobedience there. Grotesque road movie, reflective dreams on the screen, genre-bursting theater-, feature-, and documentary film hybrid … at its core, the selection is no less than a self-confident demonstration of a younger generation of filmmakers. And with Raphaela Schmid, Constanze Ruhm, and Sandra Wollner, in addition, three of the directors honored by the Diagonale are represented in the program. We thank the Viennale for this first step toward closer collaboration!”
——— Peter Schernhuber und Sebastian Höglinger, Diagonale Festival Directors

“In this year, when all areas of culture – and thus also film and cinema – have run into difficulties, the question of a festival’s functions has become especially important. What’s the role of a film festival within the framework of cultural promotion, in terms of consolidating a particular cultural area and in light of the training and further education of a form of artistic expression? In this context, Kollektion Diagonale’20 – “Die Unvollendete” is a small gesture that is meant to gather the forces and pay tribute to the community by virtue of which, and in which cinema lives.”
——— Eva Sangiorgi, Viennale Festival Director

GLI APPUNTI DI ANNA AZZORI – Uno specchio che viaggia nel tempo © Katharina Müller

The entire program of the Viennale, including the screening times and cinemas offering Kollektion Diagonale’20 – “Die Unvollendete” can be found here. Ticket sales begin on October 17 at 10 a.m.

Film list Kollektion Diagonale’20 – “Die Unvollendete“

— GLI APPUNTI DI ANNA AZZORI – Uno specchio che viaggia nel tempo (D: Constanze Ruhm, AT/FR/DE 2020, Innovative cinema)
Diagonale Prize for Innovative Cinema of the City of Graz
— Jetzt oder morgen (D: Lisa Weber, AT 2020, Documentary)
— Ordinary Creatures (D: Thomas Marschall, AT 2020, Feature film)
— Die Revolution frisst ihre Kinder! (D: Jan-Christoph Gockel, AT/BF 2019, Feature film)
— The Trouble With Being Born (D: Sandra Wollner, AT/DE 2020, Feature film)
Grand Diagonale Prize of the Province of Styria
Diagonale Prize for Editing
Diagonale Prize for Sound Design
Diagonale Acting Prize
Thomas Pluch Screenwriting Prize (Special Prize of the Jury)
— WOOD (D: Ebba Sinzinger, Michaela Kirst, Monica Lăzurean-Gorgan, AT/DE/RO 2020, Documentary)

————— Short film program “A Proposal to Project“
— A Proposal to project in Scope (D: Viktoria Schmid, AT/LT 2020, Innovative cinema)
— Elite (D: Friedl vom Gröller, AT 2019, Innovative cinema)
— Fische (D: Raphaela Schmid, AT 2020, Short feature film)
Diagonale Prize for Short Feature
— LOLOLOL (D: Kurdwin Ayub, AT 2020, Short documentary film)
— Pomp (D: Katrina Daschner, AT 2020, Innovative cinema)
— pretty-pretty (Trailer /slash Filmfestival 2019) (D: Kurdwin Ayub, AT 2019, Innovative cinema)
— Sen. (D: Friedl vom Gröller, AT 2019, Innovative cinema)
— This makes me want to predict the past (D: Cana Bilir-Meier, DE/AT 2019, Innovative cinema)