Ulrich Seidl - A Director at Work

Wie die Anderen

In the Mirror of Maya Deren

Documentary about the life of avant-garde filmmaker Maya Deren, who led the independent film movement of the 1940s.

Ceija Stojka

"Ceija Stojka" is a portrait of 64-year-old Austrian Rom Ceija Stojka, who, after a nomadic childhood, settled in Vienna many years ago. In the recent past, Ceija Stojka’s fame as an author, painter and singer has spread outside Austria. She represents the opening of Rom and Sinti society to the world of the "gadje." This process and all the difficulties it involves is unique in the history of the Rom in Central Europe. The central theme of this documentary is the fusion of two extremely different worlds in this fascinating woman. Beginning with Ceija Stojka’s present life, her biography is reconstructed in this film portrait. At the same time, a critical chronology of images portrays the common associations with the "gypsy," examples of which pervade Ceija Stojka’s life. A comprehensive consideration of the gypsy’s image, from romanticized projections to images of exclusion, discrimination and destruction, and finally the present ambivalent relationship between Rom and non-Rom.

Heimat Is a Space in Time

Director Thomas Heise picks up the biographical pieces left by his family, and composes an epic picture of four generations of his family, of a country, of a century.

Lillian

Lillian, stranded as an emigrant in New York, wants to walk back to her native Russia. Determined, she sets out on the long journey. A road movie across the United States into the cold of Alaska. The chronicle of a slow disappearance.

Bread: An Everyday Miracle

The simple staple bread has become a branded product with an increasing number of varieties and providers. The film provides authentic impressions in today’s world of bread. We encounter small craft bakers as well as corporate CEOs whose professional work is our daily bread and ask the question: how do you see the future of our bread? And: what are we actually eating?

The Great Museum

This feature documentary portrays one of the most important museums in the world, the Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien. It presents a unique look behind the scenes of this fascinating institution and encounters a number of charismatic protagonists and their working fields unfolding the museum’s special world – as an art institution as well a vehicle for state representation.

Archive of the Future

At the Natural History Museum in Vienna, everything that is found on earth and in outer space and that humans can get their hands on, is collected, archived, and studied in the name of evolutionary research. Archiv der Zukunft captures the aesthetic appeal of the natural-history collection and its working process, illuminating the mammoth project of knowledge preservation and production hidden behind the building’s imperial façade.

The Black Sun

Based on Samuel R. Delany’s short novel ‘Aye, and Gomorrah...’, where the sci-fi premise of radiation-resistant state-neutered space travellers allows the author to explore androgyny, sexual identity, etc. Hammel uses Delany’s story to create a spookily beautiful world where asexual bodies live in the contradiction between their unarousable loneliness and desire for intimacy and contact.

Paradise! Paradise!

Kurdwin Ayub captures the intimacy of a trip she made with her father. Family visits alternate with real estate tours searching for an ideal apartment: her father's will, as he's planning to retire, is to find a place so he can finally return to that stateless territory he proudly calls "homeland".

Injustice and Resistance

For more than eight decades, German Sinti and Roma experienced injustice. The film tells of the family of activist Romani Rose, their resistance and insistence on justice. The painful story of a minority between trauma and self-assertion. The two-part film deals with various forms of resistance by German and Austrian Sinti and Roma over eight decades. It is about rebellion against injustice and the insistence on dignity and justice.

For the Many – The Vienna Chamber of Labour

During the preparations for its 100th anniversary, the Chamber of Labor is accompanied and proves to be a unique contact point for the many people fighting for their rights.

Schlendern ist mein Metier

Zu ebener Erde

Into the World

This moving portrait of a maternity clinic in Vienna provides a fascinating insight into the drama, pain, and beauty of coming into the world. The everyday miracle of birth, in all its intensity and diversity, is shown using direct cinema techniques and linked to the cycle of accompanying processes in the hospital. A chronicle of the beginning of life—and its organization.

Herzausreisser - Neues vom Wienerlied

Obi-Wan Kenobi: A Jedi's Return

This special explores the return of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker to the screen, as well as Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen to their classic roles. Director Deborah Chow leads the cast and crew as they create new heroes and villains that live alongside new incarnations of beloved Star Wars characters, and an epic story that dramatically bridges the saga films.

The Death of "Superman Lives": What Happened?

The Death of 'Superman Lives': What Happened? feature film documents the process of development of the ill fated "Superman Lives" movie, that was to be directed by Tim Burton and star Nicolas Cage as the man of steel himself, Superman. The project went through years of development before the plug was pulled, and this documentary interviews the major filmmakers: Kevin Smith, Tim Burton, Jon Peters, Dan Gilroy, Colleen Atwood, Lorenzo di Bonaventura and many many more.

Never-Ending Man: Hayao Miyazaki

A look at legendary Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki following his retirement in 2013.