JEAN LUC NANCY by Antoinette Zwirchmayr

What is cinema? The Diagonale’17’s enigmatic, pulsating trailer should invite thought on this question. As the description in this year’s festival catalogue reads: “The full moon on the black night sky, a swinging pendulum, constellations, three women seen from behind, an ensemble of sparking crystals, half-transparent stripes in motion, light plays in black-and-white and in color. Images, perspectives, bodies, spaces, worlds set in relation to one another. Or, in other words: cinema. Concrete and abstract, sensual and theoretical, thought out and felt JEAN LUC NANCY the complex essence of cinema: as dispositive, as medium, as work body, as aesthetic experience, and as sensual site of encounter and tenderness – fleeting, moving, illuminating, touching.”

In the fields of fine arts and analogue film, Antoinette Zwirchmayr’s artistic oeuvre is currently among the most exciting to be found in innovative and experimental cinema. Zwirchmayr was thus awarded the city of Graz’s Innovative Cinema Prize last year for the “poetically-encoded and mysterious aesthetics at the border of documentary film and the fine arts” in Josef – Täterprofil meines Vaters. For Zwirchmayr this was already the second honor received, after the Diagonale prize for Best Short Documentary for Der Zuhälter und seine Trophäen in 2014. As partner for the realization of the Diagonale’17 trailer, in addition to the Kunsthaus Graz we are pleased to welcome The Grand Post – Audio & Picture Post Production on board for the first time.

Antoinette Zwirchmayr, born 1989 in Salzburg. Studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (video and video installation) and at the School for Independent Film Friedl Kubelka in Vienna. Lives and works in Vienna.