The four Afghan refugees who have applied for asylum in Austria strike up the song, “The caravan moves on” again and again. Encouraged by the journalist Lucy Ashton to record their lives on their smartphone cameras as a video diary, the friends film their precarious daily routine between visits to authorities, small jobs, and changing accommodations. Yet even when hope is lost, one certainty remains: the power of friendship.
In an observation over four seasons THE STANDSTILL shows Vienna and its surroundings along with encounters with people during and after the Corona crisis. The film tells of the immediate and also the long-term effects, which can only be evaluated and classified in the future.
Three juxtaposing stories taking place in Portugal, Austria and Cuba create an intimate and poetic portrait of the daily lives and struggles of the elderly in an unstable world, seen through the eyes of their grandchildren.
Haulage dispatcher Freddy Sternthaler suddenly finds himself hopelessly involved in an absurd dispute in the art scene and experiences what is probably the worst night of his life on an odyssey through Vienna.
Karl meets Nini at a Berlin train station: it is love at first sight. But the few hours they spend together before she travels back to Vienna end in a mishap in which Karl loses her phone number. He decides to move to the Austrian capital to find his dream woman again.
Two school friends who have drifted apart over the course of adulthood spontaneously arrange to have dinner together. What starts off as an innocent attempt to get back in touch develops into a renegotiation of their shared past, estranged relationship and lost future.
When the CIA discovers one of its agents leaked information that cost more than 100 people their lives, veteran operative Henry Pelham is assigned to root out the mole with his former lover and colleague Celia Harrison.
Casimê Celîl was born into a Yezidi Kurdish family in 1908, in a village called Kızılkule, located in Digor, Kars. The village and family life, which he longed to remember throughout his life, ends with the massacre they endured in 1918. During his long road to Erivan, Armenia, he lost all his family members. Left all alone, Casim was placed into an orphanage and was forced to change his name. To remember who he was and where he came from, every morning he repeated the mantra “Navê min Casim e, Ez kurê Celîlim, Ez ji gundê Qizilquleyê Dîgorê me, Ez Kurdim, Kurdê Êzîdî me”, which translates to: “My name is Casim, I am the son of Celîl, I come from the village of Kızılkule in Digor, I am a Kurd, and I am Yezidi”. He clings to every piece of his culture he can find, reads, and saves whatever Kurdish literature or art he comes across. As the year’s pass, Casim finds himself with an impressive collection of Kurdish culture and history.
Elli is an android and lives with a man she calls her father. Together they drift through the summer. During the day they swim in the pool and at night he takes her to bed. She shares his memories and anything else he programs her to recall. Memories that mean everything to him but nothing to her. Yet, one night she sets off into the woods following a fading echo… The story of a machine and the ghosts we all carry within us.
The Austrian Kreisky government enforced a policy of full employment, it was not allowed to set foot on the lawn in Vienna's Burggarten, the city and the minds of the people are grey. In a nutshell: es is zum Scheissn!
The Kronen Zeitung speaks the mind of the philistine bourgeoisie and tells about "drug abuse, duck murders and sex orgies", the city government reluctantly provides a youth center only to evict it subsequently, a former Nazi becomes president and Vienna is burning because of the Opera Ball demonstrations.
Punk in Vienna was not different than punk anywhere else. And yet, it was. "Scheiss Kieberei" instead of ACAB, Dead Nittels instead of California über alles, "Nazis raus" by Extrem on the same compilation as "We're gonna fight" by 7 Seconds. And anyway, the band names: Chuzpe, Schund, Pöbel. The outcast kids of Helmut Qualtinger tell their own story.
Barcelona’s Palau de la Música Catalana, one of the world’s most beautiful concert halls, hosted Gustavo Dudamel and the Münchner Philharmoniker with an unforgettable performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 “The Resurrection”. The composer emphasizes life and death in all its terrible and stunning splendour in this overwhelming opus: “There is nothing except the complete substance of my whole life”, he remarked on his all-embracing oeuvre. Gustavo Dudamel, who said it was “a privilege to conduct this work in this unique venue”, and his ensemble were celebrated with more than ten minutes of applause.
Facing the loss of her youthfulness, Matilda finds herself at a turning point in her life. Refreshing encounters and unexpected longings force her to face rigid self-understandings with new openness. A surprising and empathetic look at the lives of young adults.
Due to a broken getaway car, three Russian jewel thieves are forced to take shelter in an empty Viennese coffee house. They knock out the waiter and call their fourth accomplice. Ten minutes until the new car arrives! Unfortunately two policemen enter the cafe and take a seat. As the only people present, the villains are mistaken for waiters - with fatal consequences.
Single mother Kathi receives day release from prison and finds her three-year-old son, who is living with her unstable mother, in bad circumstances. She is forced to find a way to enable a better future for him, while time is against her, she has to be back in prison at six pm.
A journey through Viennese cinemas, from the first showings by the brothers Lumière to modern megaplexes.
An account of the short life and the astonishing and provocative work of the Austrian painter Egon Schiele (1890-1918), seen through the peculiar point of view and the critic voices of the women who defined the paramount milestones of his existence: Gerti, his sister; Wally, his main model and lover; and Edith, his wife. A brief story of love, hate, betrayal and misfortune.