15. March 2017

Austrian Day

In this new series, LET’S CEE presents selected Austrian productions that attracted attention during the last Austrian Film Prize in order to give foreign guests and visitors from the CEE region a first impression of current domestic filmmaking. 

For ticket information please click here

Fly Away Home - Drama by Mirjam Unger

World War II is almost over. 9-year-old Christl lives with her family in a flat in Hernals, a district of Vienna. After an aerial bomb destroys half of her house, her mother and the two girls move into the abandoned villa of a Nazi-loyal family on the outskirts. The grandparents are left behind alone. Christl quickly gets used to her new life. Curiously and fearlessly, she gets to know her surroundings and looks often into the abyss of human nature with childlike innocence. The return of the deported father causes great happiness as well as sorrow, as he must hide on account of his betrayal to his country. Then, in addition, the landlady appears with her son. And soon after the Wehrmacht surrender, in come the Russians. Everyone is afraid of them, everyone but Christl. Fly Away Home is based on the young people’s novel of the same name by Christine Nöstlinger and documents the events as seen from the unprejudiced perspective of a 9-year-old girl. Mirjam Unger’s screen adaptation was highly appraised by both Kurier and Die Presse, calling it “splendid” and “wonderful”, respectively. The author herself recalls the events of those years, explaining that “the weeks in the summer of 1945, when everything lay in ashes, were the most exciting, most thrilling and maybe even most beautiful weeks of my childhood.”

Kinders - Documentary by Arash & Arman T. Riahi

This both fascinating and touching documentary – bearing some similarities to a feature film – explains how music helps children and adolescents from deprived backgrounds to get their lives back on track. As part of a project initiated by Caritas, Wiener Konzerthaus and the Vienna Boys’ choir, some children are given the chance to learn and play an instrument, and be part of a choir or an orchestra for free. The brothers Arash and Arman T. Riahi have accompanied some of these children for a year as they were taking part in this initiative. As this was being filmed, the directors made sure to always remain out of the spotlight and let the little stars shine: through rehearsals, family gatherings, and even when the children themselves ingenuously and self-reflectively discussed their fears and dreams in front of the camera. The lives of the children in question are anything but easy: Denise is a cancer survivor, Denizcan had to deal with the separation of his parents and Ariunaa was forced to come to terms with her father’s death. Through music lessons and the camp at the end of the school year, they all manage to increase their self-confidence and see their problems and the world from new perspectives. In the end, one is certainly not surprised at the brilliance of the concert held by the children.

Night of a 1000 Hours - Mystery / Thriller by Virgil Widrich

Philip Ullich is supposed to take over his family’s long-standing business. Even his aunt Erika doesn’t want it to fall into the hands of her son Jochen, as she has discovered that he is a member of an extreme right-wing fraternity. But when she decides to sign the contract, she suddenly passes away. It almost looks like Jochen emerges victorious in the inheritance dispute, when, all of a sudden, his mother comes back to life again. Alas, her return from the afterlife isn’t the only one. Gradually, deceased family members start showing up in Ullich’s house and want to take part in the regulation of the inheritance. Among them is Philip’s attractive grand aunt Renate, with whom the young man immediately falls in love. When an already dead family member is murdered and an imperial and royal policeman arrives to investigate, events take a sudden turn. Virgil Widrich’s surreal and well-equipped chamber drama, painted in melodramatic colours, skilfully mixes reality together with fiction, depicting the process of coming to terms with the past in an extraordinary way. An “eerily beautiful family drama” (Salzburger Nachrichten) and a highly felicitous mystery film made in Austria.

The Ivory Game - Documentary by Kief Davidson & Richard Ladkani

In the last five years, the illegal ivory trade has claimed the lives of over 150.000 elephants in West and Central Africa. Meanwhile, the focus of killing has shifted to the southeast of the continent. Annually, hundreds of tons of the “white gold” are smuggled to China where ivory is still considered a luxury good. Experts fear that trading in tusks could result in the extinction of elephants within the next 15 years. Dedicated activists and environmentalists in Africa and Southeast Asia are fighting this horrific development. For 16 months, Richard Ladkani and Kief Davidson have done research, filmed and quasi assisted the activists in catching brutal poachers and corrupt officers, sometimes at the risk of their lives and mostly undercover. In collaboration with Terra Mater Film Studios, Leonardo DiCaprio’s production company Appian Way and Paul Allen’s Vulcan Productions, a superbly researched, visually stunning and highly relevant Netflix documentary has been created that knows exactly how to provide information in an entertaining manner, but has also become a vigorous appeal against the murderous ivory trade. Walter Köhler, boss of Terra Mater, therefore called the documentary “one of the most important productions of my entire career”.