Valentin

Although director Olga Kosanović was born and raised in Austria, she is not allowed to be Austrian. Her first attempt at naturalization failed. One contemptuous social media comment summed it up: “If a cat gives birth in the Spanish Riding School, that doesn’t make the kittens Lipizzaners.”What notion of identity underlies a legal system that divides society into “us” and “them”? A film about belonging — and about a second attempt.

Olga Kosanović reveals the unfair absurdity of Austria’s right to residence. The single father Vladimir wants to work to be able to stay in the country with his daughter. But if he doesn’t have a residency permit, he’s not allowed to work. From this paradox, the film filters a humanistic indictment of cynical domestic policies in the land of insurmountable peaks.

Fluctuation at the Vienna football club RSV is high. Coach Robin, who once hosted parties at the Prater sauna, sees his club as a political project, too: Players from various birth nations come together in his “dirty rotten bunch”. Athletic highlights are quite often followed by relegation, discipline and excess are cheek by jowl at RSV. Director Jasmin Baumgartner has followed Robin and his team over several years.

A mountain slope, an orchard, a house. Idyllic pictures in southern Serbia. Three generations under the roof of the house that is being prepared for its transmission.