The Flame Of Cinema: The Viennale 2014
And as the poster subject for this year's edition is a flame with which the festival states that they are "the keeper of the flame", it shows how seriously they take their position. Festival director Hans Hurch published an official statement: "Our intention is to turn the negative notion of event culture into a positive one, and make the presentation of and discourse about films a cultural event. An event and experience for many. In the sense of a lively cinematic culture, we indeed wish to be fire and flame for this city-and far beyond its borders."
There are some aspects about the Viennale that guarantee such a lively film culture. First of all the general atmosphere of the festival is usually dominated by a relaxed mood that offers plenty of opportunities to talk with filmmakers, critics, programmers and other audience members.
The festival takes place at some of the most beautiful theatres of the city and additionally the films are programmed (at least most of the time) according to the cinema they are played in. So, for example you can see Jean-Luc Godard's Goodbye to Language 3D two times at the biggest screen of the festival whereas other films like Pedro Costa's Horse Money will have a second screening in a very small and recently opened cinema named after Viennale president Eric Pleskow which will hopefully give the audience a close and emotional relationship to the film.
But there are already some problems concerning this new cinema. During some screenings before the festival massive technical issues occurred during the projection of some films. For example a screening of Maurice Pialat's Naked Childhood took place leaving out one reel after a breakdown.
There was no communication and no explanation. This is insofar a problem of the Viennale as the retrospective the film was shown in is co-hosted by the festival.
There is also a second battlefield between the heads of Austrian film culture concerning power and politics. Every word too much about this fight is a pain for film and it is very annoying that important people of the film business use the platform of a festival to fight each other instead of loving cinema. This may sound ike a rather populist statement but it might as well be true.
As Mr. Hurch certainly knows the most important factor of each festival are the films. And in this case the Viennale again offers an amazing selection of film ranging from the big hits of this year's festival circuit to some never heard discoveries, an impressive line-up of documentaries and some great retrospectives.
The festival consists of around 150 feature films and documentaries. Among the highlights are Li'l Quinquin by Bruno Dumont, Winter Sleep by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, From What is Before by Lav Diaz, Jauja by Lisandro Alonso, Birdman by Alejandro González Iñárritu, Hard to be a God by Aleksei German or Pasolini by Abel Ferrara.
In terms of documentary one can for example find the new works of James Benning, Jonas Mekas or Frederik Wiseman.
One of the greatest highlights is the John Ford retrospective at the Austrian Filmmuseum which has already started. 50 films of the master are presented, all of them in their original format and the discussion about the legend and the misunderstood myth has already begun.
Further highlights are tributes to the actor Viggo Mortensen, the director Tariq Teguia, the late filmmaker Harun Farocki (who passed away sadly this summer), thw work of Fritz Kortner and a special hommage to Jean-Luc Godard.
There is much more bliss hovering over the screens of Vienna and it will be a pure cinematic joy to plunge into them. Let's hope the flame is not just a brand or a symbol but something that really grabs hold of cinema, right from the screen to the eyes and into our hearts.
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