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CULTURE

Everything you need to know about this year’s Viennale festival

It's almost that time again when the Viennale takes over Vienna's cinemas. Here's what you need to know about the film festival, from when tickets go on sale to the main events in programme.

Published: 15 October 2022 09:27 CEST
Everything you need to know about this year's Viennale festival
Vienna's International Film Festival, now in its 61st year, kicks off October 19th. (Photo by Viennale / Roland Ferrigato)

What is the Viennale?

The Viennale is Vienna’s annual international film festival. It takes place every year in October and attracts around 92,000 visitors.

The first ever event was held in 1959, although it was simply known as a celebration of the most interesting films from that year. It was organised by Austrian film journalists who were tired of the domestic film scene at the time, described as a “cinematic wasteland” on the Viennale website.

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In the years that followed, the event became known as the Festival of Cheerfulness with a focus on comedies, before it moved towards the format that we see today.

The Viennale is now Austria’s largest international film festival and awards several prizes at the gala closing ceremony every year.

In 2022, the event runs from October 20th to November 1st.

Venues include Gartenbaukino on Parkring, Stadtkino im Künstlerhaus on Akademiestrasse, and the Österreichische Filmmuseum on Augustinerstrasse.

What are the highlights of this year’s festival?

Retired Japanese filmmaker Kijû Yoshida is the focus of the 2022 Viennale retrospective. The special programme includes 12 films chosen by the director (all with English subtitles).

According to the festival organisers, Yoshida’s films are not well known in Europe, which makes the retrospective a unique opportunity to watch them.

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The Austrian film programme is another highlight at the Viennale and includes the internationally-awarded Vera, by Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel. Vera is the opening film at the festival and will also be screened at Gartenbaukino on October 21st.

The original language of Vera is Italian, but there are screenings with both English and German subtitles.

Additionally, several English language films will be screened at the festival, including Aftersun by Charlotte Wells, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed by Laura Poitras, and The Listener by Steve Buscemi.

Also, to celebrate 60 years of the Viennale, the festival organisers have created six different trailers for the 2022 event.

When and where can I buy tickets?

Presale tickets can be purchased from Saturday October 15th at 10am. They can be bought online, by phone or at the Gartenbaukino box office on Parkring.

From October 20th, tickets can also be purchased at the festival cinemas. A wait list will be in place for sold out screenings.

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For online ticket sales, you have to register in advance at the festival website, viennale.at.

A single tickets costs €9.50 and there is a special rate of €6.50 for student daytime tickets.

A free pocket guide with the entire festival programme can be picked up from Metro Kinokulturhaus at Johannesgasse, Karlplatz or Stadtpark. 

Are there any Covid rules?

For the past two years, the Viennale has been impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic.

First, the festival took place in a smaller form in 2020, and then in 2021 there were several restrictions to comply with.

This year, the process is almost back to normal with organisers simply recommending festival-goers to wear an FFP2 mask. 

However, the website does say to double check the rules before attending a screening in case there have been any changes.

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VIENNA

Vienna Festival director Milo Rau hits back at anti-Semitism accusations

One of the latest events in Europe to be hit with accusations of anti-Semitism, the Vienna Festival kicks off Friday, with its new director, Milo Rau, urging that places of culture be kept free of the "antagonism" of the Israel-Hamas war while still tackling difficult issues.

Published: 17 May 2024 14:48 CEST
Vienna Festival director Milo Rau hits back at anti-Semitism accusations

As the conflict in Gaza sharply polarises opinion, “we must be inflexible” in defending the free exchange of ideas and opinions, the acclaimed Swiss director told AFP in an interview this week.

“I’m not going to take a step aside… If we let the antagonism of the war and of our society seep into our cultural and academic institutions, we will have completely lost,” said the 47-year-old, who will inaugurate the Wiener Festwochen, a festival of theatre, concerts, opera, film and lectures that runs until June 23rd in the Austrian capital and that has taken on a more political turn under his tenure.

The Swiss director has made his name as a provocateur, whether travelling to Moscow to stage a re-enactment of the trial of Russian protest punk band Pussy Riot, using children to play out the story of notorious Belgian paedophile Marc Dutroux, or trying to recruit Islamic State jihadists as actors.

Completely ridiculous 

The Vienna Festival has angered Austria’s conservative-led government — which is close to Israel — by inviting Greek former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis and French Nobel Prize winner for literature Annie Ernaux, both considered too critical of Israel.

A speech ahead of the festival on Judenplatz (Jews’ Square) by Israeli-German philosopher Omri Boehm — who has called for replacing Israel with a bi-national state for Arabs and Jews —  also made noise.

“Who will be left to invite?  Every day, there are around ten articles accusing us of being anti-Semitic, saying that our flag looks like the Palestinian flag, completely ridiculous things,” Rau said, as he worked from a giant bed which has been especially designed by art students and installed at the festival office.

Hamas’ bloody October 7th assault on southern Israel and the devastating Israeli response have stoked existing rancour over the Middle East conflict between two diametrically opposed camps in Europe.

In this climate, “listening to the other side is already treachery,” lamented the artistic director.

“Wars begin in this impossibility of listening, and I find it sad that we Europeans are repeating war at our level,” he said.

As head of also the NTGent theatre in the Belgian city of Ghent, he adds his time currently “is divided between a pro-Palestinian country and a pro-Israeli country,” or between “colonial guilt” in Belgium and “genocide guilt” in Austria, Adolf Hitler’s birthplace.

Institutional revolution

The “Free Republic of Vienna” will be proclaimed on Friday as this year’s Vienna Festival celebrates. according to Rau, “a second modernism, democratic, open to the world” in the city of the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, and artist and symbolist master Gustav Klimt.

Some 50,000 people are expected to attend the opening ceremony on the square in front of Vienna’s majestic neo-Gothic town hall.

With Rau describing it as an “institutional revolution” and unlike any other festival in Europe, the republic has its own anthem, its own flag and a council made up of Viennese citizens, as well as honorary members, including Varoufakis and Ernaux, who will participate virtually in the debates.

The republic will also have show trials — with real lawyers, judges and politicians participating — on three weekends.

Though there won’t be any verdicts, Rau himself will be in the dock to embody “the elitist art system”, followed by the republic of Austria and finally by the anti-immigrant far-right Freedom Party (FPOe), which leads polls in the Alpine EU member ahead of September national elections.

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