AWARDS 2026 | AWARDS 2026 |
ANARCHAFEMINIST DIVINATIONS
What if utopias and positive turns in seemingly hopeless situations were presented in prophecies instead of terrifying the listeners with apocalyptic forebodings? With Anarchafeminist Divinations, Işıl Karataş opens up precisely this space for discussion, countering the paralysis of a world in multiple crises with the hope for positive developments.
On a visual level, the film invites viewers to offer their own interpretations and perhaps even to make their own predictions. Enjoy these speculative futures and let yourself be inspired.
BACCANTI
In her film Baccanti, Emma Scarafiotti reads the ancient motif against the grain and reinterprets the transformation of the all-female protagonists. Their metamorphosis into animals ultimately proves not to be an evolutionary regression, but rather a rebellious hybridization against oppressive norms. A shared connection with one another and with nature ultimately becomes the foundation for a new beginning.
Visually, the film captivates with long and highly precise tracking shots that don't diminish the powerful performances of the protagonists. A clever epilogue establishes such a clear foundation that the subsequent film develops meaningful tension and rhythm even without spoken words but with an impressive soundtrack.
HOLY MERCURY
Andy Madjitey and Kojo Affedzie clothe a toxic environmental catastrophe in hauntingly beautiful images. Like mercury-induced hallucinations, these sequences are associatively collaged. However, the two multidisciplinary filmmakers skillfully avoid predictable clichés, because in Holy Mercury, beauty does not mean pleasing the viewer.
Andy Madjitey and Kojo Affedzie masterfully employ strategies and skills from fine art, performance, and fashion design. Although the titular poisoning of Ghana's water resources remains ever-present, it does not become the film's raison d'être. Holy Mercury offers viewers a glimpse into this complex problem, but is wise enough to avoid simplistic answers. This does not, however, imply passivity, but rather enables a dialogue on equal footing within the intellectual space it opens up.
WE ARE ANIMALS
With We Are Animals, Lorenzo Pallotta impressively demonstrates that sometimes the best stories are hidden within existing footage. From seemingly innocuous archival material, he assembles a truly gripping film around an intimate, voice-over monologue. It is precisely from the ordinariness of the recordings that the film draws its unsettling atmosphere.
The success of this feat is due not only to the excellent script, but also significantly to the editing and rhythm of the footage. The grainy source material lends the film a timelessness that will undoubtedly allow it to age gracefully.
HONORARY MENTIONS 2026 | HONORARY MENTIONS 2026 |
DULL SPOTS OF GREENISH COLOURS
In times of resurgent nationalisms, targeted weakening of independent journalism and omnipresent misinformation, Sasha Svirsky traces the process of the continuous takeover of the apparatus by formless actors. | Dull Spots of Greenish Colours
IN THE OCEAN OF TIME
Korinna Krauss skillfully replaces reason with emotion in science fiction. The result is a poetic journey through the ocean of time. | In the Ocean of Time
NINE TIMES BETTER
Emma Dock and Lorenzo Follari imaginatively give form to the emotional life of their protagonist, a contemporary interpretation of the love goddess Venus, through costume and set design. | Nine Times Better
THE QUARRY ON SUNDAY
Melissa Leicht's debut film succeeds in combining a documentary perspective, literature and contemporary composition into a worthwhile reflection on the Anthropocene and its momentary nature in the geological timescale. | The Quarry on Sunday
PROGRAMME 2026
20:00 | OPENING SCREENING
Opening Performance | Iteration of Design of the Anonymous by Joanna Zabielska
Nio Gånger Bättre | Emma Dock, Lorenzo Follari | SE
In the Ocean of Time | Korinna Krauss* | DE
Reddening | Sinem Kayacan, Elina Pirinen | FI
TICKETS
Almost all filmmakers are present for Q&A via Zoom, *many are present in the cinema.
18:00 | PARTING
Cave connection | Jeanie Daser | AT
When The Phone Rang | Iva Radivojević | RS
TICKETS
20:00 | HUMAN MOVIES ABOUT ARTIFICIALLITY
Human Movie | Eryk Salvaggio | US
Prelude to a flash | Nicolás Onischuk | AR
Someone to Steal Horses with | Dylan Pailes-Friedman | IT, US
Double Speed Half Time | Ellinor Brandenburg | DE
Pictures of a Negative Chair | Magdalena Bermudez
TICKETS
18:00 | IN THE ABSENCE OF PEACE
Atlas of the Wounded Buildings | Thadeusz Tischbein | DE
Because they know what they are doing. | Karl Wratschko* | AT
The Unknown Painting | Niklas Poweleit | DE
Phantom Aspect | Oleksandr Isaienko | UA
Dull Spots of Greenish Colours | Sasha Svirsky | DE
Feuerwerk | Timothy George Kelly | AU
TICKETS
20:00 | UNLEARNING NORMS
We are Animals | Lorenzo Pallotta | IT
Baccanti | Emma Scarafiotti* | IT
The Salon | Flora Citroën | FR
She Stays | Marinthia Gutiérrez | MX
Murderkino: Altar-Knife War-Witch | Scott Clifford Evans* | AT
TICKETS
18:00 | EMERGING PATTERNS
Balancing Act | Federica Foglia | CA, IT
Anarchafeminist Divinations | Işıl Karataş | AT
Polychora | Abinadi Meza | MX
EQUAL | Tom Bessoir* | US
Cherry Blossoms | Rennie Taylor | CA
Everything is right before | Anna Antsalo, Jenni-Elina von Bagh | FI
Jig Jag | John Dawson | US
TICKETS
20:00 | RESSOURCES
Pomo D’Orographies | Francesca Paola Beltrame* | IT
Holy Mercury | Andy Madjitey, Kojo Affedzie | GH
Erewhon | Charlie Tweed
Cacciatori d’Uranio | Davide Palella | IT
icEscape | Benedikt Alphart, Roman Gavryliuk* | AT
The Quarry on Sunday | Melissa Leicht* | AT
Bubble Bath | Giulia Magno | IT
TICKETS
BEYOND THE SCREEN
Performance
Opening | 13 May 2026, 20:00 | Iteration of Design of the Anonymous by Joanna ZabielskaWho isn’t familiar with the unassuming red-white-blue PVC bag adorned with its timeless checkered or striped pattern?
“Design of the Anonymous” is a performative and spatial project exploring home, belonging, and shared narratives.
Tickets
Tickets are only available at the Breitenseer Lichtspiele (online & in situ)Festivalpass | 40,-€
Ticket | 10,-€*
nonstop Kinoabo applies
*Discounts: minus 10% upon presentation of an OE1 membership card, pensioner's or student ID, apprentices, civilian or military service members, or cultural pass.
Workshop
16 May 2026, 16:30 |
Workshop based on Pomo D’Orographies by Francesca Paola Beltrame and musician Fabio Cervi.The workshop will be a performative version of the film accompanied by the live soundtrack by Fabio Cervi and field recording. Gathered around the tablecloth, we will foreground collective listening and identify already existing networks of solidarity.
Please register by emailing office@artfilmvienna.art.
Installations
In cooperation with the Bezirksmuseum Penzing three films from this year's programme will be presented in dialogue with the
exhibitions. Enjoy Bubble Bath by
Giulia Magno, Holy Mercury by
Andy Madjitey, Kojo Affedzie and The Quarry on Sunday by
Melissa Leicht in the unique setting of our valued cooperation partner
Bezirksmusem Penzing.
Opening hours
Wednesday, 13 May, 17:00-19:00
Sunday, 16 May, 10:00-12:00
Wednesday, 20 May, 17:00-19:00
Address: Penzinger Straße 59, 1140 Vienna
13–16 May 2026
INTERACTIVE INSTALLATION
Iteration of Design of the Anonymous by Joanna Zabielska at the Breitenseer Lichtspiele
Realized with the kind support of Stadt Wien Kultur, Bezirk Penzing, Italian Cultural Institute
AWARDS 2025
Erratic Lands – A visual journey on Alpine Apparatus by Julian Berger | Julian Berger’s animation film captures the recipient’s attention from the first image on. Based on fine-grained geological data, the filmmaker models a digital fiction of the Alps and the technical infrastructure that permeates them. It is precisely this overlay of reality and the plausible with the condensed scenario of a deserted infrastructure landscape rendered obsolete by climate change that makes Erratic Lands such a visually and thematically impressive analysis.
This Werewolf Complex by Heather E Andrews | This Werewolf Complex would be a successful awareness-raising tool if it weren't simply a remarkable short film, regardless of its ostensible subject matter. Heather E Andrews gives intimate insights into persons’ experiences with epilepsy without portraying them as patients. While we hear personal reports about aura and the very individual forms in which they can occur, on a visual level viewers enter a surreal at times quite humorous setting underlining the ambiguous experiences.
Durchgangsland by Daniel Fill | Optimists will discover in Durchgangsland a film about a European idea of coexistence. One that perhaps can only be formulated in a place that, from the outside, seems forgotten by the world. The biographies of the portrayed residents of Franzensfeste/Fortezza find their way to this place by chance; once they arrive, however, Franzensfeste/Fortezza becomes a characteristic anchor point. Daniel Fill succeeds in peering behind the facade of this seemingly cold, transitory land. The space he grants his interviewees is occupied by much more than mere narratives about a place; it speaks of flight, patriarchal violence, capitalist exploitation, and other challenges of our time, and how the fate of the protagonists in Franzensfeste changed for the better.
HONORARY MENTIONS 2025
Breaking Waves on the Surface of the Heartbeat Star MACHO 80.7443.1718 by Mona Freudenreich | Where the subject matter can be precisely calculated but cameras cannot (yet) provide images, research relies on simulation. Mona Freudenreich expands the visual and emotional palette of scientific visualization with pop references, found footage, and other sources that are associatively collaged.
You Are the Truck and I am the Deer by Max Ferguson | Max Ferguson’s film is not only a wild yet skilful ride through analogue collage and effects techniques, but is also as emotionally intense as it is visually powerful.
A Weak & Panicked Animal by Jake Starr | Jake Starr's film reminds viewers of the fragile relationship between humans and nature. The hubris of homo sapiens in finally declaring a separate geological era, the Anthropocene, is questioned. If stray wildlife is enough to send people into a panic, one can immediately imagine the powerlessness that true forces of nature would provoke. Cleverly edited from mostly surveillance camera footage, Starr makes a powerful point.
80.7443.1718
PROGRAMME 2025
20:00 | OPENING SCREENING
Erratic Lands - A visual journey on Alpine Apparatus by Julian Berger | AT
Durchgangsland by Daniel Fill | AT
live Sound & Visuals by TE-R (Louise Linsenbolz & Thomas Wagensommerer)
19:00
Capers in the Office by Vera Sebert | DE
Trying to make a podcast by Marcin Ratajczyk | AT
Parangolé by Abinadi Meza | MX
Are we there yet? by Henrique Vilao | PT
Zap On by John Dawson | US
You Can't Find Love by Tom Bessoir | US
BOOKANIMA: Dance by Shon Kim | KR
This Grey by Cristina Zar | UK
One Hundred White Trucks by Brice Goldberg | US
When People Talk About Their Dead, They Look Up by Anna Halbleib | ES
Hands | Birds by Christine Kettaneh | LB
Moon Crab by Leah Clare Michaels | US
Try, Tri-Butterfly by Jonah Steeman | BE
21:00
Breaking Waves on the Surface of the Heartbeat Star MACHO 80.7443.1718 by Mona Freudenreich | DE
Space Waste by Don Hai Phu & Stefan Schmitzer | AT
Rain Undulations by Ruxandra Mitache | RO
grain cloud atmosphere by Martin Moolhuijsen | DE
REQUERIMIENTO by Andrea Bordoli | CH
Kintsugi Angel by Lukas Huffman & Erika Senft Miller | US
19:00
Policy Wonks by Sean Grattan | US
21:00
Full Out by Sarah Ballard | US
This Werewolf Complex by Heather E Andrews | UK
This Is How I Felt by Josh Weissbach | US
The Act of Not Seeing with One's Own Eyes by Markus Maicher | AT
Different/Same/Both/Neither by Çağla Gillis | AT
You Are the Truck and I am the Deer by Max Ferguson | BE
Nomadism, temporal connection and new feminine longings. by Maria Bilbao Herrera | VE
NIGHTS AND DAYS by Daniela Sláviková | SK
19:00
The Hall by Jingru (Cyan) Cheng, Chen Zhan, Mengfan Wang | CN
Umwelt/4470 - Part I by Charlie Tweed | UK
A Weak & Panicked Animal by Jake Starr | AU
We dreamed in places that no longer exist by Giorgos Efthimiou | GR
If the circumstances allow it by Karl Wratschko | AT
Four short films in memory of Tomonari Nishikawa selected by Estefanía Díaz & Carlos Cruz, FISURA
Erratic Lands - A visual journey on Alpine Apparatus by Julian Berger | AT
Spatial speculations about failed architectures in cooperation with the Institute for Visual Culture, Technical University Vienna by Jonas Leimer, Simge Pehlivan, Elias Roher | Philipp Jainz, Maximilian Liko | Atilla Boyan, Paul Sebasta, Abigail Troya | Andreea Avram, Johanna Maggauer | AT
21:00 | Film selection by FISURA for a+f+v
a+f+v is looking forward to presenting a selection of films from South Amercia by Estefanía Díaz and Carlos Cruz, the initiators and curators of FISURA. FISURA is a festival for experimental film in Mexico and will present in its fifth edition in Sepember 2025 a film selection by a+f+v.
“It is a Latin American experimental film program presented as a digital and photochemical mosaic where memory, land, personal cinema, the body, dance, ancestral practices and the struggle of native peoples are presented as a political and vertiginous window where untamed, poetic and metaphorical universes are revealed.”
Transbordos by Bruno Varela | MX
Image for Nina and the tree by Ana Comes | AR
Aquí unde tudo acaba by Claudia Cárdenas / Duo Strangloscope | BR
Firefly by Claudia Claremi | CU
Kopacabana by Marcos Bonisson, Khalil Charif | BR
Solar Weaver by Julio Saveedra | MX
Metamorphosis by Estefania Díaz | MX
Discovering mayonnaise by Silvana Camors | UY