Such fantastic successes, as well as the newest works give a reason to hope
that contemporary Austrian film – in spite of the present-day short-sighted
cultural politics - is moving towards a promising future. On the other hand
those successes are a motive to make a retrospective of a certain creative phase
which seems to be very fruitful.

Until a few years ago most of the domestic film lovers would accompany Austrian
films with a tired smile – only here and there, there would appear an exception
worth of praise. However, in general – mostly in discussions about feature films
– they were spontaneously accused of unskilled and thoughtless use of film means
(and unfortunately too many times it turned out to be the truth) as well as
overall ignorance of social and political reality and naďve expression.

Austrian film: self-sufficient, chewed up, attractive and often previously
examined and at first sight proved film (metric) goods – educated on gags and
buffoonery from the 50’s and 60’s, tested recipes for success, well-known from
cabaret stages of the 80’s and 90’s (and all adapted to the idea of success
cherished by uncreative television people who lack courage). Add to that just a
few indecisive and therefore incomplete attempts to please the disperse idea of
domestic “authorial film”. Turning of heads, crossing of arms, general
resignation.

In the last few years this attitude is gradually changing. On one hand because
in discussions of Austrian film it seems that there is more and more
(international) appreciation for distinguished productions as well as
avant-garde and documentary films: with names such as Martin Arnold or Peter
Tscherkassky, Ulrich Seidl or Nikolaus Geyhalter suddenly we no longer address
only a small circle of "hardcore" film lovers, but we are able to attract a
wider audience. On the other hand the attention in the area of feature films is
less and less limited to individual promising debuts – for example Halbe Welt
(Half the World, 1993) by Florian Flickers, Ich Gelobe (For God and
Country, 1994) by Wolfgang Murnberger or Tempo (1996) by Stefan
Ruzowitzky. Furthermore, as late as in the middle of 90’s it became more
apparent that a new promising generation of female film authors was arriving, as
they were present in an unforeseen way with their short films. Films, such as
Die Frucht Deines Leibes (The Fruit of Thy Womb, 1996) by Barbara Albert,
Flora (1996) by Jessica Hausne, Speak Easy (1997) by Mirjam Unger or
Ägypten (Egypt, 1996) by Kathrin Resetarits, drew more public attention
than feature films. In their innovative manner – open arranging of personal and
so called “from the street taken” stories, without paying attention to already
well-known and worn-out formal conventions and forms of storytelling, these
filmmakers easily succeeded to overcome the gap between the demanding and
entertaining which until recently seemed to cut the Austrian film landscape into
two implacable parts. Suddenly more attention was drawn to exactly those
somewhat bolder approaches and storytelling perspectives that all had to be
thankful to the persistent and aimed incentives of mediator instances that –
giving up on blue-eyed market reasons (upon which the noted public and legal
geniuses for encouraging of film production obviously more and more
categorically insisted) – counted on film creation favorable to experimenting
and innovative. Along with many non-institutional initiatives and engagements of
independent distributors here we have to mention institutions such as Sixpack
Film or Diagonale (Festival of Austrijan film, revived in 1998) which
in the last few years have systematically taken care that the products of small
innovative “factories” of Austrian film be shown on screens.

The fact that the Austrian filmmakers have more often been more successful on
international film festivals is exactly the result of this work – and the
surprisingly active offspring (in spite of huge cultural and political troubles)
is the result of a great motivation for taking risks for which the above
mentioned leave so little space. The newest successes on festivals above all
show that Austrian film scores best exactly where taking of such risks has
become a principle of work. With his disturbing adaptation of the novel Die
Klavierspielerin (La Pianiste) Michael Haneke won three awards on last years
film festival in Cannes (Isabelle Huppert and Benolt Maginel won the Silver palm
for leading roles, and the film the main award of the festival jury). And in
that same year 28-years old Jessica Hausner and her debut LOVELY RITA were
invited to Cannes as a part of renowned section Un certain regard. And
finally Ulrich Seidl in the same year won the main award of the jury on film
festival in Venice for his in every sense magnificent debut Hundstage (Dog
Days). This year Hundstage were shown in Cannes as a “discovery of the
year”, which is the second great success for Seidel’s film which is said to be
one of the most controversial and at the same time internationally most
discussed achievement of Austrian film.

Such fantastic successes, as well as the newest works give a reason to hope that
contemporary Austrian film – in spite of the present-day short-sighted cultural
politics - is moving towards a promising future. On the other hand those
successes are a motive to make a retrospective of a certain creative phase which
seems to be very fruitful. At that we concentrate on works from the last decade
in order to reconstruct some of the only subsequently recognized directions of
development and to make more transparent some of the ways that these works
formed contemporary creative endeavor. At that our attention is not only
directed only at outstanding successes – fragile and controversial works will
also be under consideration: films that took some uncertain, now and then
indecisive and sometimes even deliberately risky paths, films in whose “walking”
we recognize predecessors’ steps and which in their attempt to create a balance
between “art and commercialization” remained without a resolution or simply did
not fully develop.

Finally, a special attention will be directed to the very lively area of
documentary and avant-garde films (who were always guidelines) as well as
experimental animated and video works. Apart from the on-going debate about
quality of Austrian film, in all these areas there were many quality works being
done and at that formal clarity and noticeable film sense ensured not only the
survival of Austrian film in international proportions but also that it
sometimes acts as the leader. This film production (that for a long time was
barely even noticed by the general audience) is in many ways meritorious for the
creation of that area of tension which attracts the attention of younger film
audience – and they are in return responsible for drawing attention to these
film areas that offered so many new ideas.

Whoever today talks about Austrian film with good intentions, at that thinking
of acclaimed examples of feature films, more or less refers to the influence of
avant-garde and documentary films. So much more intriguing is the look backwards
to a decade in which women were those who more often reached the intersections
between the above mentioned film types. And how ever much their results differ
among each other, it seems that they, as a whole and observed from today’s point
of view, opened up significant perspectives.

Florian Flicker and Peter Tscherkassky are the two authors whose work in the
90’s was the bright moment of Austrian filmmaking and avant-garde. It is
interesting that Flickers’s work originated (in the end of 80’s) in the area of
experimental short film and Expanded Cinema, while Tscherkassky (of
course remaining faithful to his clever auto reflexive experiment)
created for cinemascope format. Apparently it seems that Nikolaus Geyrhalter
remained untouched by the above mentioned film types. With only four
documentaries and one TV-documentary film, from the 1994 he succeeded to
reinforce the international reputation of Austria as the "Grande Nation"
of documentaries. However, Geyrhalter also reached the above mentioned
intersections but at that he succeeded to be entertaining, while not lacking the
compositional clarity and precision (and without making concessions to the
habits of TV viewers), and therefore can also be regarded as one of the
guidelines. (The four hours long feature film after which – such as after the
newest Geyrhalter’s documentary master piece Elsewhwhere – the audience
leaves the theatre all aglow and wide awake, is yet to be made!) Film artists
Joseph Dabernig and Siegfried A. Fruhauf, each in their different way, show in
their experimental films, that can also be called narrative films of some other
type, how to work in strictly defined systems and at the same time be funny and
eccentric. Similarly poor in quantity is the work of Kathrin Resetarits. But her
work shows the relaxed and open state of Austrian film which is demonstrated in
its brightest and most unpretentious moments. Definitive categorization of short
films by Resetarits in certain genres would be so inappropriate as if when we
would want to connect this author to only one role – she is, namely also an
actress. To watch Kathrin Resetarits shooting her films or acting is just like
watching a sun coming out, possibly like the dawn in the film Realtime by
Siegfried A. Fruhauf. Already in the first moves of this extraordinary
phenomenon, it is clear that the sun will come out. But how long and how bright
it will shine, remains uncertain. And that is exactly what makes the dawns so
intense. (Robert Buchswenter i Lukas Maurer)