Vienna 2008

FIPRESCI Prize: "Our Beloved Month of August" (Argentina)

Compared to certain other events on the fall calendar, the Vienna International Film Festival is a rather modest undertaking, taking up just five of the city's screens and concentrating on salutes to figures that could fairly be described as "cultish", such as Bob Dylan and the Portuguese director Miguel Gomes.
      But one could easily argue that this simply means the Viennale has its priorities straight: It's not worried about attracting big stars or glossy Hollywood premieres; it's more interested in compiling the finest new cinema from all over the world for a grateful Austrian audience.
      Viennale is a celebration of cinema, not marketing: While London was gearing up for the royal gala premiere of the new James Bond movie, Vienna was winding down with Ari Folman's daring animated documentary Waltz with Bashir — still generating conversation fully five months after its Cannes debut.
      In addition to the Dylan and Gomes salutes, special programs at Vienna included tributes to German New Wave director Werner Schroeter, Stadtkino head Franz Schwartz, avant-garde director John Gianvito (Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind) and actress Nora Gregor, and a special screening of comedies dedicated to the memory of Manny Farber.
      But perhaps the most important retrospective was Los Angeles: A City in Film, a series of cinematic resurrections curated by director Thom Andersen from nearly a century of L.A.-centric filmmaking. Viennese audiences queued up at the city's Filmmuseum to see the likes of Ulmer's Detour, de Toth's Crime Wave and Norton's Cisco Pike on the silver screen for the first time in decades.
      And as for Bob Dylan, well, he was not there. (Norman Wilner)

Viennale (Austria), October 17-29, 2008, www.viennale.at
The FIPRESCI jury awarded its prize to Miguel Gomes' Our Beautiful Month of August (Aquele Querido Mes de Agosto). Details

Reports

Miguel's Labyrinth. Along with a tribute to American filmmaker John Gianvito this year, the work of Portuguese director Miguel Gomes was highlighted. Markus Keuschnigg reviews Gomes' film Our Beloved Month of August. "Centered in and around the small town of Arganil in central Portugal, the film is a multi-faceted, playful yet earnest foray into the border zone of narrative filmmaking."
The Cinema as Playground. Diego Lerer reviews Extraordinary Stories by Argentinean Mariano Llinás. The film "neither looks nor feels like any of the Argentinean movies one might have seen playing the international circuit in the last few years. Instead of contemplation, there's one adventure after another; instead of silence, constant narration; instead of opacity and gravity, a sense of playful showmanship."
"Must Read After My Death". Norman Wilner reviews Morgan Dews' brilliant documentary collage. "Constructed entirely out of found footage — reels of 8mm film, still photographs and extensive audio recordings — the film is a piercing examination of a profoundly dysfunctional American marriage in the conformist 1960s".
Thom's Place. The retrospective — "Los Angeles — A City in Film" — was curated by Thom Anderson and assembled films that deal with the claims on reality of Los Angeles and its people. Neil Young reflects on the cinematic iconography of Los Angeles.

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