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What you need to know about Vienna’s free summer film festival

Every year, Vienna hosts a film festival outside the Rathaus that showcases culture, food and community.

Published: 3 July 2023 17:32 CEST
A view of the Film Festival at Rahausplatz in Vienna in July 2022.
A view of the Film Festival at Rahausplatz in Vienna in July 2022. Photo: Stadt Wien Marketing/Theresa Wey

What is it? 

The City of Vienna’s Film Festival at Rathausplatz has been a fixture on the cultural calendar for more than 30 years. 

Whether it’s ballet, opera or pop concerts, the event showcases a host of films showing stunning musical performances. It runs right through from the beginning of July until September 3rd, sometimes with multiple films in one evening. 

And the best thing is that it’s completely free of charge. 

What’s on this year?

For the 33rd year of the fest, the city has arranged a diverse programme with multiple music genres shown on a big screen right in the centre of Vienna. 

Highlights include singer Rita Ora’s stunning performance against a backdrop of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, which is showing at the festival on July 6th. 

A screening of world-renowned Jamaican guitarist and reggae singer Bob Marley’s Uprising concert from 1980 takes place on July 8th.

Then there’s Scottish singer Lewis Capaldi’s Baloise session, being shown on July 10th.

READ ALSO: Vienna tops rankings of world’s most liveable cities – again

On July 12th a screening of the Vienna State Opera’s “La Traviata” takes place. The story is given a modern twist by focusing on a Parisian It-girl trapped in an Instagram bubble.

For Queen fans, on July 15th there’s a showing of the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert from April 20th 1992. The aim of the concert was to celebrate Freddie’s life and work and to increase awareness of AIDS, which prematurely ended his life.

Meanwhile, on July 21st, there’s a series of children’s opera showings from 5pm. 

For the full list of showings and times, check out the programme.

Visitors at Vienna's Film Festival in 2022.

Visitors to Vienna’s Film Festival in 2022. Photo: Stadt Wien Marketing/Theresa Wey

How many people attend?

People from Vienna, across Austria and beyond flock to the festival.

In 2022 the event attracted around 635,000 guests.

Vienna Mayor Michael Ludwig (of the Social Democrats/SPÖ) said after last year’s festival: “Anyone who wants to enjoy first-class entertainment with free admission and experience the high quality of life in our city is always in good hands at the film festival.

“With the film festival, the City of Vienna offers its residents and guests a unique offer that is unparalleled internationally. I am delighted that so many people have responded to this call and have been able to spend wonderful hours in summer at the film festival.”

City councillor Peter Hanke said: “The film festival is an important flagship for Vienna, and enjoys great popularity not only nationally but also beyond Austria’s borders.”

What else is on offer?

Aside from the film showings, there are also musical performances. Plus on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays there are live DJ performances, so you can sip a cocktail, dance and get into the weekend.

You should also make sure to have room in your stomach for some delicious food. 

Stalls sell food from all over the world, whether it’s Croatian cuisine, Korean food or Austrian classics like Kaiserschmarrn.

Friends and families flock to the square just in front of the beautiful Rathaus building in the first district of Vienna to meet up, share dishes (from Mexican to Thai, Indian and sausages) and drinks (there are stalls with local beers, different cocktails and non-alcoholic drinks as well) and enjoy the long summer days.

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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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