Austria 1: History Now

History Now takes as its departure the most devastating political history in Europe over the last century, as seen through a contemporary lens. The films are some of the most powerful shorts from the last two years, all confronting a nationalist heritage, showing in various ways how our shared history lives on in the now. Deeply personal, often highly imaginative, these are stories ranging from how traditional clothing can act of its own kind of oppression, to different kinds of culture of silence, and everything else that gets passed from one generation to the next. They are films that try to express what is not talked about, that want us to remember history, but not to be confined by it. Films about aiming to carve out your own history and move on.

Curator: Christoffer Ode

Read more about the programme – Introduction.

Screened:
TUE 24/10, 17:00 SLOTTS
SUE 29/10, 11:00 SLOTTS

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TURTLENECK PHANTASIES

Turtleneck Phantasies combines historical accounts with personal memories, merging documentary and fiction. This results in a complex work that seemingly incidentally, yet excitingly and often tragicomically, sketches the state of a society, representing remembrances of suppressed, unheard and forgotten voices.

Austria, Germany 2022 / 17:36 / Director: Gernot Wieland

GENOSSE TITO, ICH ERBE

A mountain slope, an orchard, a house. Idyllic pictures in southern Serbia. Three generations under the roof of a house that is being prepared for its transmission. Everyone with their own inheritance, which has to be carried together: memories, fictions, what is there but does not find a place, what nobody wants and still somebody does not let go of. An approach to history that becomes part of one’s own. Home is complicated, inheriting may be a burden and Tito becomes a symbol for something that has been – and a filmic examination of what remains.

Austria, Germany 2021 / 27:00 / Director: Olga Kosanović

DIRNDLSCHULD

For some the dirndl is just a pretty, colourful dress with an apron, for others it is a lifelong confrontation. Just like garments, locations are also contaminated and are subjected to different interpretations by family history. Each generation has its own way of reading those narratives, that put layer upon layer until no one can be sure what is underneath.

Austria 2021 / 15:00 / Director: Wilbirg Brainin-Donnenberg

WANKOSTÄTTN

Karl Stojka stands in a light-coloured suit with elegant hat and tie on Quellenstraße, a street in Vienna’s multicultural Favoriten district, a former working class neighbourhood in Vienna. We are drawn into the pull of his memories. As a twelve-year-old child, he was deported with his five siblings to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. He survived, as did his younger sister Ceija. This film resulted from a close personal bond between the filmmaker and Ceija and Karl Stojka, and is an unparalleled film about a lost site of memory.

Austria 2023 / 37:00 / Director: Karin Berger

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