September 2010
August 27 to October 6, 2010
Auto-Kino
Road | Movie: 1940 to 1976
In its early decades, the cinematic gaze was strongly linked to the view from a train. Since the 1980s, (digital) cinema has increasingly adopted an “airborne” point of view, akin to a flight simulator. In between lies modern cinema, an era whose visual and narrative strategies were greatly influenced by a third mode of locomotion - the automobile and its relatives. Road movies from the 1940s to the 1970s reflected profound social changes in the wake of the global economic crisis and World War II. They also expressed the attendant cultural shifts: a more open and fluid relationship to time, space and identity. Being on the road always means: to be unstable, away from (the idea of) home, ready for encountering other ways of living. Leslie Dick: “On the road nobody knows you, you can be anybody, become anything.”[...]
September 29 and 30, 2010
In person: Joost Rekveld
In the abstract films of Dutchman Joost Rekveld, clarity and logic of construction take the place of emotional gesture. In his lecture on Poetry and Light, Rekveld will discuss how he has managed to create both visually fascinating and conceptually mature works. His oeuvre is influenced by the color and forms of filmmakers like Paul Sharits, Jordan Belson, and especially James Whitney, who inspired Rekveld to take up filmmaking in the first place. Like his predecessors, Rekveld creates “ultra-chromatic” experiences” based on mathematical principles (all his films are named after prime numbers).[...]
September 22 to October 6, 2010
Imaginations
10 Austrian Documentaries
Ten outstanding documentary films from Austria, made between 1979 and 2006, selected and presented by ten curators from Austria and abroad - with this attenuated portrait of a rich film culture the Austrian Documentary Film Association dok.at celebrates its ten-year anniversary. Each curator was invited to choose one feature film which for them, personally or culturally, marks an extraordinary moment in the history of Austrian documentary cinema.[...]
Oktober 1, 2010
Premiere: "Me and Orson Welles"
by Richard Linklater
The career of American director Richard Linklater, subject of a complete retrospective at the Film Museum in 2007, has only been sketchily attended to in this country. As is the case with several of his other films, his latest work has not been released in Austrian theaters: Me and Orson Welles (2008), a stunningly soulful tragicomedy about art, love, dreams, ambition and ego. The film narrates the turbulent weeks leading up to the 1937 premiere of Orson Welles’ legendary (and lovingly recreated) production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar at the Mercury Theater in New York City. The film stars Claire Danes, Zac Efron, Eddie Marsan, known for his work with Mike Leigh, and Christian McKay in a bravura performance as Welles.[...]
The Utopia of Film
