The retrospective "The Best Cinema of Austria" takes place as part of the Austrian program of the 4th Festival of German speaking countries in Saint Petersburg DACH_FEST (February 28 - March 20, 2022). It is dedicated to the 10th anniversary of the Austrian Film Award, which first given out in 2011. The retrospective introduces the audience of the DACH_FEST 2022 to the diverse range of contemporary Austrian cinema over the past 10 years. A program of 6 films will be presented to the St. Petersburg audience. Lectures by film critics on contemporary Austrian directors and films are planned as part of the film screenings.

All films are shown in their original language with Russian subtitles. Admission to all screenings is free.

PROGRAM:

March 9 (Wednesday) 19:00 - "Breathing", 2011 Austrian art house drama film written and directed by Karl Markovics, 93 min., 18+

The film concerns a 19-year-old inmate in a detention facility for juveniles, with a pending application for parole, who is challenged to reconsider his identity by a trial work-release job at a morgue. Starring Thomas Schubert, Karin Lischka and Gerhard Liebmann, it was screened at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. Schubert won Best Actor at the 17th Sarajevo Film Festival for his performance, presented to him by Angelina Jolie. The film was selected as Austria's submission to the 84th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film, but it did not make the final shortlist.

March 10 (Thursday)

18:30 - Lecture: "Ulrich Seidl - an Austrian film provocateur". 16+ Lecturer: Ksenia Reutova - journalist, film critic, curator

19:00 - "Paradise: Love", 2012 drama film directed by Ulrich Seidl, 120 min., 18+

It tells the story of a 50-year-old white woman who travels to Kenya as a sex tourist. The project is an Austrian production with co-producers in Germany and France. It is the first installment in Seidl's Paradise trilogy, a project first conceived as one film with three parallel stories. Paradise: Love competed at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. It subsequently screened within such festivals as Toronto International Film Festival, Maryland Film Festival and New Zealand International Film Festival.

March 11 (Friday) 17:00 - "Deine Schönheit ist nichts wert", 2012 directed by Hüseyin Tabak, 86 min., 12+

When 12 year old boy Veysel falls in love for the first time he decides to express his feelings by reciting a poem to his beloved in front of the class. But in order to do so he first needs to translate the lyrics into German.

March 11 (Friday) 19:00 - "The Dark Valley", 2014 Austrian-German Western drama film directed by Andreas Prochaska, based on Thomas Willmann's sole eponymous 2010 novel. 115 min., 16+

The film stars Sam Riley as a lone traveler who ends up in a small town in the Alps, finding corruption and tyranny running rampant. It was selected as the Austrian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 87th Academy Awards, but was not nominated.

March 12 (Saturday) 16:30 - "Murer: Anatomy of a Trial", 2018, directed by Christian Frosch, 137 min., 16+

The prestigious politician and large-scale farmer Franz Murer, responsible for the Ghetto of Vilnius as SS leader and NSDAP functionary from 1941-1943, stands trial in Graz, Austria. Survivors of the mass murder arrive to testify and obtain justice: to no avail.

March 12 (Saturday) 19:00 - "The Trouble with Being Born", 2020 science fiction drama film directed and co-written by Sandra Wollner, 94 min., 18+

An international co-production of Austria and Germany, the film stars Lena Watson as an android built by a father (Dominik Warta) as a replicant in place of his young daughter who had disappeared years prior. On its premier at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival, the film garnered controversy for its depiction of a relationship between a man and a minor, albeit an android, that also resembles his child.