Little known yet widely influential, Austria’s film industry is unique among world cinemas. While naming your favorite Austrian films may be a challenging exercise, this landlocked country also boasts one of the world’s most controversial and influential directors: Michael Haneke. Without a doubt he is the most internationally successful Austrian filmmaker working today, and his cinematic impact resonates globally. However while Haneke has received worldwide praise, there are many Austrian directors who are yet to receive the recognition they deserve. Following the footsteps of Haneke are directors such as Ulrich Seidi, Markus Schleinzer, Stefan Ruzowitzky and Barbara Albert. Each have made thought-provoking, strong pieces of cinema that merit wider international acclaim.
This years Portland German Film Festival FOCUS ON AUSTRIA will show the following films:
SUNDAY, OCT. 6, 2019 @ 11:00 AM
BRECHT (Brecht)
Germany / Austria 2018,color, 187 min
Director: Heinrich Breloer
Cast: Burghart Klaußner, Tom Schilling, Adele Neuhauser, Lou Strenger, Mala Emde, Karolina Horster, Trine Dyrholm, Franz Hartwig, Ernst Stötzner, Friederike Becht, Leonie Benesch, Maria Dragus, Laura de Boer
Bertolt Brecht, a theatre revolutionary, poet of the state, outsider, looks back on his life in 1956, the year of his death, in East Berlin: from provocations in the Augsburg of the First World War, to the early poetic and amorous height flights in Munich and Berlin in the 1920s, his escape from Hitler and US exile, followed by his later years caught in a dilemma between timeless classic and a failing GDR class fighter, an inflexible free man and a compromised Artist.
MONDAY, OCT. 7, 2019 @ 05:00 PM
THE CASTLE (Die Burg)
Austria 2019, 95 min
Director: Hans H. Guttner
Cast: Fabian Krüger, Katharina Lorenz, Nicholas Ofczarek, Christoph Radakovits, Michael Klammer,
DIE BURG is the filmic portrait of one of the most important theatres worldwide (Das Burgtheater), conceived as a cinematographic journey of exploration, rendering visible what is otherwise invisible: those very processes that are necessary to perpetuate this kind of cultural apparatus. The film is about the interlocking of a multitude of working routines, of the manifold action which has to be taken from the selection of a play to its premiere. So these multifaceted perspectives convey the fascination proceeding from the subject THEATRE in a particularly intense way.
MONDAY, OCT. 7, 2019 @ 07:00 PM
THE TOBACCONIST (Der Trafikant)
Germany/ Austria 2018, 108 min.
Director: Nikolaus Leytner
Cast: Bruno Ganz, Simon Morzé, Johannes Krisch
Starring Bruno Ganz (Downfall, Wings of Desire) as Sigmund Freud. Based on the international bestseller by Robert Seethaler
A tender, heart-breaking story about one young man and his friendship with Sigmund Freud during the Nazi occupation of Vienna.
TUESDAY, OCT. 8, 2019 @ 05:00 PM
VIENNA’S CINEMAS (Kino Wien Film)
Austria 2018, 97 min
Writer, director, producer, editor and sound recording: Paul Rosdy
Cast: Anna Nitsch-Fitz, Gerhard Gruber, Stefan Nehez, Horst Raimann,
VIENNA’S CINEMAS is a journey through Vienna’s movie theaters from 1896 to today. Told through the stories of movie theater owners, projectionists and technicians, audience members, an historian, and countless documents in film, photo and text, the film is a history of Vienna’s cinemas – from the first cinema on Kärntner Straße to the multiplex world of today.
These films are proudly sponsored by the Austrian Consulate General in Los Angeles.
