New Austrian film

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As contemporary Austrian film is Austrian filmmaking called from around the 1970th An exact demarcation is not possible, but the feature film Moos auf den Steinen from 1968 is often referred to as the first New Austrian Film in film studies because of its content and style clearly different from earlier Austrian films .

New Austrian Film reached its first climax in the 1980s, when Austrian filmmaking returned to the world of film with some excellent works. Austrian film has experienced a renewed upswing since the turn of the millennium with predominantly socially realistic dramas and documentaries, which annually record a previously unknown number of international festival nominations and awards.

definition

In addition to Moos auf den Steinen (1968), the beginning of this era in Austrian film history is also categorized as the avant-garde film movement of previous years as pioneers of the new Austrian film , as it enriched Austrian filmmaking with previously unknown forms of expression and content.

In New Austrian Film, however, “new” does not mean a quality criterion, but the newly emerging Austrian film scene that flourished after the demise of the undemanding entertainment , music and home movies of the post-war period. This decline in film production as well as in the number of admissions and sales went hand in hand with the bankruptcy of several large film production companies specializing in these genres, such as the ÖFA or the Wiener Stadthalle film production company, which is always controversial because it is financed by the City of Vienna with public money . At the same time, an Austrian avant-garde film scene emerged around Ferry Radax , Franz Novotny , Peter Kubelka and others from the late 1950s. However, this did not actually have an impact on the New Austrian Film until relatively late - for example Valie Export's Menschenfrauen (1979/1980) or The Practice of Love (1985).

Georg Lhotsky's Moos auf den Steinen 1968 is regarded as the starting shot of a new Austrian film, not least because the film alternately caricatures the Austrian mentality in color and black and white: one cannot find a future because of the past - the old cannot be driven away. But it was precisely from this time onwards that filmmakers finally succeeded in breaking free of this dogma and becoming more creative. However, the film scholar Gottfried Schlemmer said:

“One should not confuse the diversity of our films since the late 1960s with those innovative currents and schools that paradigmatically changed in Italy, Great Britain, France and the German film scene in the post-war period. It would be wrong to measure the so-called new Austrian feature film against films that are to be understood as the result of very specific situations of departure. With us, the film in question has been stimulated from everywhere rather indiscriminately than specifically. But this also gives him a freedom that could be his chance for the future. "

history

Feature film production
year number
1969 3
1970 7th
1971 5
1972 9
1973 6th
1974 8th
1975 6th

Filmmaking from the 1970s onwards is sometimes referred to as New Austrian Film . Similar to New German Film, it was influenced by the 1968 movement , often auteur films and dealing with social issues. In addition to the experimental and avant-garde film attempts of the 1960s, however, it developed more slowly than its German counterpart and did not reach its first peak until the 1980s. In addition to current issues such as the neglect of society and youth, discrimination against women and other individual avant-garde achievements, the New Austrian Film also dealt with everyday fascism and the Second World War. In this regard, Jesus von Ottakring (1976), Der Bockerer (1981), Die Ausgesperrten (1982), the trilogy Wohin und zurück (1983–1986), the documentary film Die and Leben im Schloß (1988) and Hasenjagd (1994) were particularly well-deserved works .

Associations of filmmakers such as rosa-green-blau, founded in 1968 and the Kuratorium Neuer Österreichischer Film, which traced the latest developments in Austrian film as the main item on the Viennale program in 1970 , and the Austrian Filmbüro from 1983 onwards, played important roles in the development of a new Austrian film scene a.

In the 1970s, discussions began about the introduction of a film funding law, which was also passed in 1980. In the run-up to this, the filmmakers organized themselves again in associations. In 1977 the Syndicate of Filmmakers in Austria was established and in 1979 the Association of Austrian Film Directors. From 1978 to 1983 the Austrian Film Days were held annually in Kapfenberg . From 1984 the Austrian Film Office held the National Film Festival in Wels , which was later also renamed the Austrian Film Festival.

Generation change in the 1970s

The 1970s was the decade with the lowest ever feature film production. However, this trend already began in the early 1960s, when Austria disappeared almost completely from the international film scene for around 15 years. It wasn't until the mid-1970s that feature film productions were made that could and could also be seen internationally - the films of the so-called New Austrian Film. But for the time being, the last home movies and comedies were made, such as Franz Antel's Ausser Rand und Band am Wolfgangsee (1972), as well as individual literary films and relevant erotic and sex films, whose theatrical screenings were no longer banned.

From the mid-1970s, however, a new generation of directors was given the opportunity to show their skills. This also included Peter Patzak , whose first work Parapsycho - Spectrum of Fear from 1975 fell into a scheme that was previously unrepresented in Austria, the horror film. The Iranian-born Mansur Madavi also made a successful feature film debut in 1974 in The Happy Minutes of Georg Hauser , and Dieter Berner was able to establish a critical homeland film for the first time with the ORF series Die Alpensaga , which became known beyond the borders. Other important directors who rose in those years were Fritz Lehner , Mara Mattuschka , Franz Novotny and Kitty Kino . The important cameraman Christian Berger also tried his hand at directing temporarily.

Documentaries about politics and nature complemented the modest domestic feature film production for the cinemas. Alfons Stummer contributed to this with his documentation Europa - Leuchtfeuer der Welt (1970), Alfons Benesch with Traumreise über die Alpen (1971) and Walter J. Zupan with Vorarlberg - Land der Alpen. The notable documentaries of these years also include the composer biographies of Hans Conrad Fischer . For example, Ludwig van Beethoven (1970) and The Life of Anton Bruckner (1974) appeared.

In the area of ​​literary film adaptations, more and more sophisticated literature was devoted to. As an addendum to the political events of the last few years, an ancient drama was adapted for the modern era by the native Greek Antonis Lepeniotis in 1970 with Alkeste - The importance of having protection . The director found a convincing path from the avant-garde film to the art film to the realistic, suspenseful cinema film. This was also shown in The Manifesto (1974) and Operation Hydra (1980). In 1972 the fourth film adaptation of Krambambuli was released under the title They called him Krambambuli (director: Franz Antel, with Michael Schanze , Paul Hörbiger , Rudolf Prack ). In the same year, Wim Wenders staged The Fear of the Goalkeeper at the Penalty, based on Peter Handke's eponymous story with Arthur Brauss , Kai Fischer and Erika Pluhar . In 1973 Peter Beauvais shot Das Weite Land based on Arthur Schnitzler with OW Fischer , Walther Reyer , Sabine Sinjen , Michael Heltau and Helmut Qualtinger .

Based on a true story about a peasant who refused to serve by the name of Franz Jägerstätter , The Jägerstätter case was created in 1971 based on a script by Hellmut Andics and directed by Axel Corti . For dead spots, based on a book by Michael Scharang , this director received the newly created Great Austrian State Prize for Cinematography in 1975 . In 1976 Titus Leber released the music-experimental film Kindertotenlieder based on a composition by Gustav Mahler . His 1978 film Freund I moved in was of the same kind .

In 1976 the modern Passion Play Jesus von Ottakring was premiered in Vienna after a play . Wilhelm Pellert was both the author of the play and the director of the film adaptation, which clearly reveals the Austrian backyard fascism. Jörg A. Eggers Ich will Leben, who received the title valuable in Austria , was submitted for the international Oscar . The film, which premiered in 1976, describes the story of a child severely disabled by an accident and how the parents deal with it. In the same year, Mansur Madavi's Fire Exit also appeared in cinemas - a film that deals with the possibilities of freedom in Western society.

The non-fiction author and underground filmmaker Ernst Schmid Jr. produced his first full-length production in 1977. It was the experimental film Wienfilm 1896–1976, which wanted to convey a differentiated image of Vienna to the audience with collages. An extraordinary production of that year was Götz Hagmüller and Dietmar Graf's The memorable pilgrimage of the emperor Kanga Musa from Mali to Mecca. The film was shot in Africa and has a strange effect thanks to the poetic camera work and a gentle sequence of cuts. Attila Hörbiger acted as narrator . Franz Antel was waiting in the same year with Tony Curtis as the lead in his production Casanova & Co on.

In 1977 John Cook and Susanne Schett presented Slow Summer , a film that portrayed financially weak filmmakers, their fantasies and their environment - a kind of self-reflection. Peter Patzaks was responsible for the socially critical feature film Kassbach from 1979, which deals with fascism and neo-Nazism. The main role was played by Walter Kohut .

At the end of the 1970s, several films were made that played a certain pioneering role in the productions of the 1980s and 1990s. For example Mansur Madavi's The Blind Owl (1978), which tells the story of a girl who escapes from a reformatory. It is one of the first Austrian films to deal with the lives of people locked up - be it in closed institutions or prisons. A series of feature films dealing with Austrian history before the Second World War triggered Maximilian Schell's sensitive film adaptation of Ödön von Horváth's play Tales from the Vienna Woods (1979). And Valie Export's productions Menschenfrauen (1979) and Invisible Opponents (1979) were the prelude to the so-called “women’s films”, in which mostly disadvantaged women were portrayed. The second work, which dealt with the unequal treatment of men and women in society, occupied many film critics in the daily newspapers, which helped the film to become more successful.

Boom in the film scene in the 1980s

After the historic low in domestic film production in the 1970s, the 1980s experienced an upswing due to numerous first works by young directors as well as increased production of innovative and socially critical amateur and feature films. The most important representatives of the Austrian avant-garde and experimental film had meanwhile taken different paths. While Valie Export represented Austria at the Venice Art Biennale in 1980, Peter Weibel taught at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and Peter Kubelka held a professorship at the Frankfurt Art Academy . Together with the other Austrian avant-garde and underground filmmakers, however, they have already made a significant contribution to ensuring that Austrian film history after 1945 is recognized internationally at all.

The first public success of the 1980s, however, was a different kind of comedy. Franz Novotny's Exit - just don't panic is about two Viennese rowdies played by Paulus Manker and Hanno Pöschl . The film was one of the first to benefit from the new Austrian Film Funding Act . This came into force in 1981 after many filmmakers and film scholars had demanded it for decades. One of the most interesting attempts of the New Austrian Film was Niki List's Malaria - also an unusual comedy that was awarded the Max Ophüls Prize in 1983 . The film, about late adolescents, impressed with its high color quality, bizarre camera work and revealing humor. At the same time, it represented the film debut of the beginning of his career cabaret artist Andreas Vitásek . Niki List's second, very successful, attempt to establish a contemporary entertainment cinema was the film Müller's office from 1986. This detective comedy, accompanied by singing, has 441,000 visitors in Austria as the most successful production of the New Austrian Film before the turn of the millennium. Peter Patzak kicked off a unique satirical series of films about the Viennese detective inspector Kottan in 1981 with The Efficient Belongs to the World. Together with Helmut Zenker , he wrote the congenial templates for this film as well as for the abundance of its sequels, which were produced from 1984 as parts of the Kottan determined series for ORF.

The German-Austrian-Hungarian joint production Mephisto even brought in an Oscar abroad. The film directed by István Szabó was based on a novel by Klaus Mann . The acting performance of the main actor Klaus Maria Brandauer contributed significantly to the international success . With the title Especially valuable was Titus Leber music-experimental film Anima - Symphonie Fantastique provided. This highlight of the calligraphic film came with Charo Lopez and Mathieu Carrière as the leading actors and was shown at the Cannes International Film Festival .

Margareta Heinrich's documentary The Dream of Sandino (1980) was also an extraordinary production . In it she had the population of Nicaragua questioned about the Sandinista liberation for seven weeks . The two-hour result was released in theaters in 1981. Werner Grusch undertook another anti-imperialist expedition with Bonjour Capitaliste in 1982 . Based on the novel of the same name by Friedrich Torberg , Wolfgang Glück directed Der Schüler Gerber in 1981 . Werner Kreindl represented the teacher , the student Gerber was played by Gabriel Barylli . After Jesus von Ottakring and Kassbach, the film again set strong socio-critical and artistic accents. In 1982 Edwin Zbonek presented his film about the affluent society, Gehversuche . Critics compared the film to Federico Fellini's I Vitelloni, and in To Die A Little , Mansur Madavi tells the story of an old person's struggle, played by Fred Solm , against being evicted from his apartment.

As a contribution to socially critical filmmaking, several films about young outsiders were made in the 1980s. These productions usually caused a stir in the media and heated discussions. One of them is Walter Bannert's The Heirs from 1981. This film is about two sixteen-year-olds who become members of the New Right by chance rather than on purpose. In the same year Dieter Berner made a film about the disorientation of young city dwellers with The Real Man . In 1982 the film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Elfriede Jelinek followed with Die Ausgesperrten . Franz Novotny directed this film about a young murderer ( Paulus Manker ) . In their second production, I wanted to live with drug and alcohol addicts in 1983, the married couple Ruth and Alfred Ninaus once again addressed cases of adolescent hardship. The aesthetically most extraordinary and irritating works of the 1980s, however, were Paulus Manker's directorial debut Schmutz (1986) and Michael Synek's Die totenfisch (1989). The two films, which show surrealist elements, are about outsiders in conflict with the environment.

Films about inmates of prison or insane asylums dealt with another dark side of society. One of the first such films was Houchang Allahyaris Fleischwolff (1980), which tells of life in a prison. Director Ernst Josef Lauscher highlighted the gloomy mood in an asylum by shooting his first full-length film Kopfstand entirely in black and white . The content is the story of a man who is being held in a psychiatric institution because of a trivial matter . The main roles were cast by Christoph Waltz and Elisabeth Epp . Andreas Gruber made his debut in 1983 with a similar film. In inside and outside its key player hopes to be released from psychiatry.

In 1981 Franz Antel caused a sensation with a production that was unusual for him. It tells the fate of the butcher Karl Bockerer during the Nazi era, who masters all problems with humor and humanity. The Bockerer was awarded the actor's prize for "the Bockerer" Karl Merkatz at the 1980 Moscow Film Festival . The later effects of National Socialism, on the other hand, are thematized in the unusual love story Kieselsteine (1983). In this first work by Lukas Stepanik , the two main characters are a Jewish woman and a German, thirty years after the end of the Second World War. The two are played by Brigitta Furgler and Jörg Gillner . In 1988 Egon Humer also remembered the National Socialist past . In his documentary about the National Socialist killing center Schloss Hartheim, Dying and Living in the Castle , he exposed the fact that such institutions existed so far, and at the same time gave an inkling of the horrific events in such an killing center.

In 1982 Peter Hajek emerged with his first film production. With Be tender, Penguin, the 41-year-old film critic presented a film whose message is the demand for equality between men and women. Marie Colbin played the main role in this highly successful relationship comedy with over 210,000 people . In 1983 , Kitty Kino created a partly self-deprecating women's film with Karambolage .  Marie Colbin, Renee Felden , Gerhard Rühmkopf and Wilfried Baasner advanced into one of the last domains of the men's world - competition billiards . Susanne Zanke also dealt with the situation of women in society , who in 1989 produced a noteworthy female portrait with The Scorpio Woman.

Xaver Schwarzenberger's film adaptation of The Silent Ocean, which tells of a failed doctor who seeks refuge in a village, received, among other things, the Silver Bear at the 1983 Berlinale . As a cameraman for this film, Schwarzenberger received the German Camera Prize a year later . Fritz Lehner's epic Schöne Tage (1981) about mountain farming and Christian Berger's mountain farmer drama Raffl (1983), which was written at the time of the Napoleonic era, are also part of a new type of home film that, apart from kitsch and naive cheerfulness, depicts the sometimes difficult life in the country Cast plays. Wolfram Paulus Heimatfilm Heidenlöcher (1985) about loyalty and betrayal, however, was set at the time of the Second World War and Angela Summereder created the stylistically idiosyncratic portrait of a poor peasant woman unjustly accused of murder in Zechmeister in 1981 . One of the remarkable debuts of three young directors in 1983 is also part of the modern Heimatfilm genre. So portrays Leopold Huber in brain burning human abysses in an environment of drunks rural village.

Michael Haneke directed his first film for the cinema in 1989 with The Seventh Continent . As in all subsequent films, he wrote the script for this drama, which won awards at the Locarno and Flanders film festivals. Michael Schottenberg tried his hand at a thriller that year : Caracas (1989). The attempt was at least successful in terms of criticism, as the film received two awards: the Cannes Film Festival Youth Prize and the Max Ophüls Prize . However, the film only attracted a few thousand visitors to domestic cinemas. Further attempts in the thriller genre, which were based on both foreign productions and the extremely successful TV crime series Kottan determined , were usually just as unsuccessful in the 1990s.

Revival of the comedy genre in the 1990s

The socially critical New Austrian Film continued in the 1990s . Comedy production was revived with the so-called "cabaret films". These take up a principle that was established in the silent film era - the use of popular cabaret artists as film actors. One innovation, however, was that typical negative character traits of Austrians could now also be portrayed and caricatured without being rejected by the audience. Cabaret and cabaret film owes this facet above all to Helmut Qualtinger , who caused a sensation in the 1960s with his carefree portrayal of Austrians.

Typical examples of such films are Paul Harathers India (1993) with Josef Hader and Alfred Dorfer , Harald Sicherheitsitz ' Muttertag (1993) with Roland Düringer and Alfred Dorfer in half a dozen roles each and almost the entire rest of the Austrian cabaret scene in the other roles, or Free Play (1995), also by Harald SICHERITZ. These films attracted up to 230,000 visitors to the cinemas, but are also crowd pullers on television year after year.

Another variant of the comedies of the 1990s are satirical grotesques like Die Ameisenstraße (1995) or slightly entertaining social games like I love Vienna (1991) or Tafelspitz (1992). While Michael Glawogger continues the tradition of the grotesque farce in Die Ameisenstraße by depicting a Viennese apartment building as a microcosm of opposing characters, Houchang Allahyaris I love Vienna is a comedic story of the clash of two cultures, Orient and Occident, in Vienna. A western comedy that reached almost 190,000 visitors was presented in 1999 by Harald SICHERITZ. Wanted was created in the Lower Austrian Wild West adventure town of No Name City with Alfred Dorfer , Michael Niavarani , Simon Schwarz u. a. turned.

An exception in the film productions of the 1990s turned Andreas Gruber's historical drama Rabbit Hunt - Out of sheer cowardice there is no mercy is from 1994 The film is called ". Mühlviertler Rabbit Hunt " became known merciless manhunt for escaped inmates of the Mauthausen concentration camp after, in the course of which individual farming families hid refugees despite the risk of their own lives. The film is an exception, not because of its difficult subject, but also because, in contrast to comparable productions from earlier years, the film also reached a wide audience.

In the 1990s, documentaries on sociopolitical topics and marginalized groups were added to a greater extent than before. Apart from the often monotonously instructive style of television documentaries, the decline of a provincial industrial region in postal address Schlöglmühl by Egon Humer , as well as the everyday life of foreign newspaper sellers in Vienna in Good News by Ulrich Seidl, were documented in 1990 .

Strong autobiographical traits and surrealist models can be seen in Wolfgang Murnberger's early works Himmel oder Hölle (1990) and Ich vobe (1994) . The first tells about life in the country from the perspective of young people, the second about the dreary everyday life of soldiers in a provincial barracks. Barbara Albert's socially critical drama Nordrand (1999) is also about young people . Due to the numerous international awards, the production, and with it the young leading actress Nina Proll , received greater attention in Austria.

In the children's and youth film sector , which was never able to establish itself in Austria, the most active directors in the 1990s were Bernd Neuburger ( Holidays with New Year's Eve, 1990; Lisa and the Saber- Toothed Tiger , 1995) and Wolfram Paulus . The latter had 150 children help to create a backpack full of lies (1996) and this film was also successful on the German market, where it started with 100 copies.

Michael Haneke directed Benny's video in 1991, his second feature film - again a drama that comes up with cold-feeling characters and shows a clinical picture of society. Florian Flicker offered a utopian scenario of a special kind in his science fiction film Halbe Welt in 1993 . The second most popular New Austrian Film after Müller's office was Joseph Vilsmaier's adaptation of Robert Schneider's novella Schlafes Bruder (1995).

With his works dedicated to cinematographic kinetics, Peter Tscherkassky continued the tradition of Austrian avant-garde film and ensured numerous festival successes. Likewise Michael Kreihsl , who followed up on Titus Leber's calligraphic film experiments and was awarded the Caligari Film Prize of the Berlin International Film Festival in 1996 for Charm's incidents .

Even Virgil Widrich could attract international attention with his short films. Other filmmakers worth mentioning are Antonin Svoboda , Jörg Kalt , Jessica Hausner , Barbara Gräftner , Ruth Mader , Anja Salomonowitz and Mirjam Unger .

Filmmaking since the turn of the millennium

Cinema film production
Austrian sole or majority productions
year number
2000 17th
2001 12
2002 26th
2003 20th
2004 24
2005 24
2006 33
2007 25th

Internationalization and specialization

The turn of the millennium brought with it an internationalization and specialization of part of Austrian film on dramas and documentaries with a socially and socially critical background. In 1999, Barbara Albert marked the beginning of a new era of internationally acclaimed Austrian filmmaking with the melodrama Nordrand . As the first Austrian production since 1948, the film was nominated for the main prize of the Venice Film Festival and the leading actress Nina Proll received the Marcello Mastroianni Prize for “best young actress”. In view of the increasing festival presence and awards for Austrian films in the following years - for example Michael Haneke's Die Klavierspielerin (2001), Ulrich Seidls Hundstage (2001), Virgil Widrichs Copyshop (2002), to name some of the most internationally acclaimed films - Nordrand enjoys becoming a film scholar regarded as a turning point in Austrian filmmaking. For example, the American film scholar Robert von Dassanowsky describes Nordrand as the film that follows the prophecy of the Hollywood Reporter from 1997 that Austrian film is ready to take on an international profile (“[…] Austrian film 'is ready to take on an international profile' “), Fulfilled.

This turning point in Austrian filmmaking - i.e. the professionalization and style development of a predominantly younger section of Austrian filmmakers who bring Austrian film productions also international attention - is partly due to Austrian film funding , partly to the good education, albeit only with the Vienna Film Academy there is a notable institution of this type in Austria. Last but not least, the successes are of course due to the existing creative potential, which can develop better in today's loose structure of the film production industry than in the past decades. Nevertheless, well-known filmmakers such as Franz Novotny or Virgil Widrich criticize Austrian film policy, which in their opinion produces many talents, but does not provide enough funding to exploit their potential. Many other personalities working in Austrian film also advocate an increase in film funding and often cite the example of Luxembourg , where the high film funding not only benefits Luxembourg film culture , but also promotes the national economy in multiple ways through the value chain and subsequently increased it Tax revenues also flow back to the state.

After the northern edge and the turn of the millennium, a number of internationally acclaimed socially critical films followed, of which Ulrich Seidl's Dog Days 2001 kicked off. The film, which received the jury's grand prize in Venice, among other places, tells stories of repulsive Austrian characters in a shocking way. Michael Haneke set a new high point in this development in 2001 with his film adaptation of Elfriede Jelinek's piano player . The Austro-French co-production achieved over 2.5 million admissions internationally, making it the most successful Austrian production for many years.

A series of documentaries critical of capitalism and society followed, of which Erwin Wagenhofer's We Feed the World 2004 kicked off and was internationally successful. Nikolaus Geyrhalter , who brought Our Daily Bread to the cinema in 2004, devoted himself to a similar topic . In 2005, Workingman's Death by Michael Glawogger was released , which received a little less response. Hubert Sauper was more successful in 2006 , who performed Darwin's Nightmare a . a. received the French César film award and an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary .

The film At the Other End of the Bridge (2003) was a special feature, as this film, directed by Hu Mei and co-produced by Salzburger SK-Film, is the first Austrian-Chinese co-production. Haneke's next film was released in 2005 and was the thriller Caché, again made in an Austrian-French co-production . This film also achieved around one million visits internationally - although no figures are available from many countries.

Since dramas, documentaries or stories about human abysses are often the most watched productions from Austria, the New York Times described Austria as, loosely translated, “World Capital of Bad Feeling Cinema” on the occasion of a film series in New York's Lincoln Center. Barbara, among others, was shown there Alberts Nordrand (1999), Michael Hanekes Das Schloss (1997) and The Piano Player (2001), Nikolaus Geyrhalter's Elsewhere (2001), Ulrich Seidls Models (1999) and Michael Glawogger's Workingman’s Death (2005) and Slumming (2006). The “excellent quality of the new wave of Austrian cinema” is based on the “will to confront the contemptible and emphasize the negative”. Michael Haneke is also recognized in the same article as the director who, from The Seventh Continent (1989) to the present day, has made the greatest contribution to the international attention of Austrian film.

The tensions between the commercially oriented film production companies aiming for more independence from state subsidies and the companies that favor more sophisticated and educational productions led to a split in the previously common interest group in 2006. In spring 2006, the largest representatives such as Allegro, Dor and Epo-Film split off from the Austrian film producers association AAFP . The cause was differences of opinion about the distribution of the funding , which has not been increased since 2003, which led to tensions between the artistically ambitious and the commercially oriented producers. The larger, commercially oriented production companies then founded Film Austria .

Development of the entertainment film

In contrast to the dramas, melodramas and documentaries, which are often socially and socially critical, the Austrian entertainment film did not achieve an international “breakthrough”. Nationally, too, the production of comedies starring well-known cabaret artists declined after an absolute peak. This high point was reached between 2000 and 2004 when Komm, sweet death (2000, Wolfgang Murnberger ), Poppitz (2002, Harald Sicherheitsitz ), MA 2412 - Die Staatsdiener (2003, Harald Sicherheitsitz) and Silentium (2004, Wolfgang Murnberger) with 200,000 Up to 440,000 visitors followed the gigantic success of Hinterholz 8 (1998), the most popular Austrian film by far with 617,000 visitors. After 2004, no entertainment film has been able to record more than 100,000 visitors. Instead, managed for the first time since Hasenjagd (1994) by Andreas Gruber films with serious / Enlightenment background jump (significantly) over the 100,000 visitors limit in Austria (since the beginning of uninterrupted cinema recording 1981): We Feed the World (2005) by Erwin Wagenhofer on the food industry and waste as well as Die Fälscher (2007) by Stefan Ruzowitzky about the largest counterfeiting campaign of the National Socialists in the Second World War . In contrast to the comedies that were highly successful at home but that were neglected internationally, the films critical of history and society achieved the majority of their audiences abroad and have also received numerous awards.

The Dor Film , responsible for most of the commercially successful on the domestic market comedies among directors Harald Sicheritz and Murnberger around cabaret star Roland Düringer , failed after Silentium (2004) with another comedian comedies. The quarter liter class (2005), based on Düringer's successful cabaret program, only had 40,000 visitors, and friendship (2006) with Erwin Steinhauer and Rupert Henning was also not a great success. The major European production about World War II, All the Queen's Men (2001), which Dor Film co-financed and directed with Stefan Ruzowitzky, even had to be satisfied with 5000 visitors in Austria. Although the film received significantly more visits abroad, it flopped there too, not least due to poor reviews of the script and actors. The competitor, Allegro Film , also failed in 2005 with a major European production, the period film The Executioner. Despite 40 copies in circulation with 30,000 visitors in Austria, the four million euros in production costs could not even be played in.

With their comedies, other companies could not even begin to keep up with the great successes before 2004. Only MR Film , producer of the MA 2412 film, achieved a box-office success in 2008 with a film adaptation of pop star Falco's life ( Falco - Damn, we're still alive! ) Directed by Thomas Roth with over 150,000 visitors. In 2009, Dor Film was able to build on the successes of its predecessors with The Bone Man , a sequel to the Wolf Haas crime films Come, Sweet Death and Silentium, again with Josef Hader as the main actor.

Michael Glawogger

While the importance of cabaret artists in film seems to be declining, novel comedy concepts have been able to achieve relative success - measured by the failure of previous concepts. Comedies that not only squint at the home market, but also reached international festival presence in Germany and with subtitles. In 2004 , the Austrian Hans Weingartner achieved international success with his Berlin-based company in coproduction with the Austrian authors' film company coop99 with the socially critical comedy The fat years are over . The film reached an acceptable 70,000 visitors in Austria, but 900,000 in Germany and over 1.3 million visitors across Europe. The film was also nominated for several international film awards, including the Palme d'Or at the Cannes International Film Festival . At least in Austria, Michael Glawogger was just as successful with nudibranchs in 2004 - also an Austrian-German co-production. The film reached 70,000 visitors in Austria, but was rarely used in Germany. Hans Weingartner's next comedy with a capitalism-critical touch, Free Rainer , also lagged far behind its predecessor, with just 150,000 visitors in Germany and less than 20,000 in Austria. In 2006 Glawogger directed Slumming, an intelligent comedy about the inhuman excesses of the boredom of wealthy students, which, however, also received little attention in the cinemas.

An absolute novelty brought Andreas Prochaska to some success in 2006 . With In 3 Days You're Dead , he tried to apply the tried and tested recipe of the US horror splatter to Austrian conditions. Prochaska places a banal story about an unknown serial killer who is after a teenage clique in the rural Salzkammergut and lets his actors speak their respective dialects. This should give the plot greater authenticity. The attempt worked, the film attracted over 80,000 visitors to Austrian cinemas. An international evaluation should also take place, but was limited to a few thousand visitors in Germany and Switzerland. The second part will follow in 2008. In 2010, The Unintentional Abduction of Mrs. Elfriede Ott , also directed by Andreas Prochaska, reached 235,886 viewers. The comedy sees itself as the “antithesis” of the Austrian cabaret comedy and takes place in Graz.

Major films

The following is a selection of important works of the New Austrian Film, which can also be seen as milestones due to the new facets with which they enriched Austrian filmmaking formally or stylistically :

literature

  • Christa Blümlinger, Gottfried Schlemmer: The new Austrian film. Verlag Wespennest, Vienna 1996, ISBN 3-85458-510-1 .
  • Francesco Bono: Austria (in) felix: On the Austrian film of the 80s. Edition Blimp, Graz 1992, ISBN 3-901272-00-3 .
  • Robert von Dassanowsky , Oliver C. Speck: New Austrian Film. Berghahn Books, New York / Oxford 2011, ISBN 978-1-84545-700-6 .
  • Gustav Ernst, Gerhard Schedl: Close-ups: To the situation of the Austrian cinema. Europaverlag, Vienna 1992, ISBN 3-203-51148-7 .
  • Sven Joeckel: Contemporary Austrian and Irish cinema: A comparative approach to national cinema and film industry in small European countries. Edition 451, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-931938-24-7 .
  • Margarete Lamb-Faffelberger: Literature, film and the culture industry in contemporary Austria. P. Lang, New York 2002, ISBN 0-8204-4904-0 .
  • Margarete Lamb-Faffelberger, Pamela S. Saur: Visions and visionaries in contemporary Austrian literature and film. P. Lang, New York 2004, ISBN 0-8204-6156-3 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The new Austrian film. P. 13
  2. ↑ Walter Fritz: I experience the world in the cinema. Vienna 1996, p. 272
  3. ↑ For the first time feature films and documentaries with theatrical release from Austrian sole or majority production ; Information for 2004–2007: Film Industry Report 2008, facts + figures 2007  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF) Austrian Film Institute, December 2007, p. 19; Retrieved December 27, 2008@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.filminstitut.at  
  4. ^ Robert von Dassanowsky : Austrian Cinema: A history. McFarland & Company, Jefferson NC 2005, ISBN 0-7864-2078-2 , p. 268
  5. ↑ Discussion in Treffpunkt Kultur , ORF 2 , November 27, 2006
  6. ^ Dennis Lim: Greetings From the Land of Feel-Bad Cinema . In: The New York Times . November 27, 2006
  7. ^ "The salient quality of Austrian film's new wave is its willingness to confront the abject and emphasize the negative."
  8. ↑ art vs. Commerce: Austria's film producers are divided and now split into two associations . ( Memento from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) In: Die Furche , May 4, 2006
  9. ↑ The most successful Austrian films of the last 10 years ( Memento of the original from December 25, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , TodayKino, accessed December 25, 2016 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / kino.heute.at
  10. ↑ The most successful Austrian films of the last 10 years ( Memento of the original from December 25, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , TodayKino, accessed December 25, 2016 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / kino.heute.at
  11. ↑ Quote from the film report in “Kulturmontag”, ORF 2, September 27, 2010, 10:30 p.m., minute 0–5