Austria

Criterion wrote:

Revanche begins with a reflection of trees in a lake at twilight. They’re seen upside down—an image of nature reversed—yet the earth is eerily calm. This almost otherworldly illusion arouses a viewer’s awareness of perspective, which is then disturbed by the splash of an object tossed into the middle of the lake. Widening ripples shatter the impression of stillness, and a genuine sense of mystery sets in. Such an intimation of the supernatural typifies Austrian writer-director Götz Spielmann’s unique vision in this film.Read More »

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This documentary deals with work, poverty, violence, love and sex. A film about human beauty in twelve chapters which tells the tales of people from Bombay, Mexico City, Moscow and New York, who are all struggling for survival, with ingenuity, intelligence and dignity. They all share the dream of a better life.Read More »

For her directorial debut, Jessica Hausner has created an honest and revealing portrait of Rita, a wilful and unruly teenager on the verge of womanhood. Her sexual awakening leads her to intimacy with a schoolboy too young and a bus driver, too old. Her efforts to break out of her solitude and claustrophobic environment isolate her even more, until one day she crosses the line.Read More »

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Ratz wishes he could kill his father who is an Austrian Minister. At least virtually. He develops a computer game that allows him do so as often as he pleases. On the opposite path, we follow Jonas’ suspenseful journey who has devoted his entire life tracking the Nazi Official who killed his father and who, as the records state, is in hiding. One day, Mimi, Ratz’ first love, calls him up from New York to join her and renovate a cellar. She promises him in return to help him sell his video game. This will unexpectedly bring Ratz face to face with uncomfortable questions about history and his own filial relationships to his father.Read More »

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A look at what people from different countries suffer in order to have a job. Includes a coal miner in the Ukraine, a slaughterhouse worker in Nigeria, a sulfur miner in Indonesia, a steel worker in China, and a ship-breaker in Pakistan.Read More »

Synopsis
White-tiled rooms, neon lighting; on the walls black and white photographs from an exhibition entitled ,Vernichtungskrieg’ (War of Extermination) documenting the atrocities committed by the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front. Against this background, Ruth Beckermann and cameraman Peter Roehsler have filmed former soldiers talking about their experiences beyond the bounds of ,normal’ warfare. With a mixture of helplessness, impotence, shame, opportunism and undiminished fanaticism, witnesses from that time tell of atrocities such as the shootings of Russian prisoners-of-war, the murder of Jews and abuse of women. The differing accounts of these events demonstrate how selective perception was even in this most inhuman and brutal of environments.Read More »

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Notes on Marie Menken explores the almost forgotten story of the legendary artist Marie Menken (1909-1970) who became one of New York´s outstanding underground experimental filmmakers of the 1940s through the 1960s, inspiring artists such as Stan Brakhage, Andy Warhol, Jonas Mekas, Kenneth Anger, and Gerard Malanga. She was a probable role model of Edward Albee´s “Who´s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and ended up
as a Warhol Superstar.Read More »

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Judith, an investigative journalist, begins to unravel a murder mystery that implicates one of her current lovers. When she checks out a peep-show business on the seedy side of Hamburg as part of the investigation, she runs into a former boyfriend who used to be a psychiatrist but is now an arms dealer. Judith is lured back into his fold, cheating on her current lovers, one of whom is also a shrink. Despite her profession, or perhaps because of it, Judith tends to blend fantasy and reality, so small wonder she is attracted to psychoanalysts. But, two shrinks and a murder prove more than Judith can handle. Nominated for the Golden Berlin Bear at the 1985 Berlinale.Read More »

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As a documentary filmmaker, Austrian director Michael Glawogger isn’t interested in advocacy or journalistic exposé, and while he allows some scenes to unfold before the camera, he isn’t of the strict fly-on-the-wall vérité school, either. Following up 2005’s Workingman’s Death, his stunning tour through five of the world’s most hazardous labor sites, Whores’ Glory similarly explores a triptych of poverty-ravaged prostitution sites, spending equal time in a Bangkok brothel, the red-light district in Bangladesh, and a complex of bars and single-room barracks called “The Zone” in Reynosa, Mexico. Read More »