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PROGRAM OF THE VIENNALE 2013
State of Grace
Filmmaking, François Truffaut once said, is an alchemistic art, an art of blending and enchanting. It’s a matter of
creating a connection between the individual cinematic elements and, according to Truffaut, putting them into a
“state of vibration.” This refers to the merging of actors, locations, light and dark, sound and silence as well as to
the blending of languages, expressions and emotions.
We’d like to borrow this definition of filmmaking for our festival. Our work, too, is a bit like alchemy: a connection
of forms, styles, genres, the old and the new, the familiar and the experimental, the small and the large format,
“the raw and the boiled” (as one of the festival programs is called), the many different elements of cinematography.
It’s not so much about the overwhelming, the plenty, the special, the so-called event. Much rather, our idea is to
create a kind of “state of grace” of cinema, a state of vibration, as Truffaut called it, a moment, which will, perhaps,
go beyond the scope of our festival.
About the Festival
Hans Hurch
International film festivals like the Viennale are increasingly turning into important forums, in which new, topical
cinema is being discussed. Beyond commercial events and productions determined by box offices, festivals have
meanwhile become one of the few establishments committed to the multi-faceted and vivid idea of cinema. And,
above all, devote themselves to putting this idea into practice. This may sound trivial, but actually means that certain
film festivals – and there is a world-wide family of festivals, which are partly connected through friendly relations
and solidarity – are the last and crucial bridge and connection between filmmakers and audiences.
This certainly doesn’t apply to all the films of this year’s Viennale
program, yet to the large majority. In addition to some works, which can
hope for relative economic success and have a local distributor, it is the
large number of little known, partly hidden works, which haven’t been
fed into the vast culture and media network, that film festivals need to
give the attention they deserve – even if it’s just temporarily and to a
limited extent.
The development of progressive monopolization, an economy that
defines all life and work situations and the resulting marginalization
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of alternative ways of production and existence has its cultural counterpart
in cinema.
Film festivals, which don’t primarily concentrate their attention on
the market, red-carpet shows and widespread event hysteria, are able
to open small niches of freedom, acting as an intermediary between individual
works, filmmakers, curious media and possible audiences.
The Viennale has set itself the task of being such a go-between, and
sometimes, perhaps, to play the role of a smuggler or black marketeer.
In the process, we have made, and are making, wonderful discoveries
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of which we are proud. For example, the Viennale was the first festival
to direct special attention to little-known filmmakers, including Miguel Gomes, Denis Coté, Gianfranco Rosi, Shinji
Aoyama and Alain Guiraudie, to name but a few. Their new, much-noticed and internationally acclaimed films will
be presented at this year’s festival. Yet our work isn’t dominated by the patronizing and paternalistic attitude of
“discovering,”; rather by the idea that a festival can be an accomplice for the work of others.
The attitude that the Viennale has assumed towards young filmmakers is also valid for older, forgotten or underestimated
directors. Thus our festival was the first to re-introduce the work of significant artists such as Lino
Brocka, Emil de Antonio, Peter Nestler, Stephanie Rothman or Alberto Grifi and, in 2013, of the truly exceptional,