The filmmakers’ district
Film and TV crews are a common sight in the Josefstadt. But the district also has everything else you need to make a film:
from camera rentals to production firms and distributors to screenwriters, musicians, actors – and even an association devoted to analogue film.
The Josefstadt’s last cinema closed in 1990, but the dotdotdot open-air festival brings shorts from around the world to the gardens of the Folk History Museum every summer.
The district is also home to filmmakers like 25-year-old Marie Luise Lehner, whose short ‘Geh Vau’ was a dotdotdot favourite and can be streamed via kinoVODclub. ‘I am currently working on a film called “My zipper is open. So is my heart” about the erotic dreams of a young woman,’ says the multitalented artist who also won the Alpha literature award for her first novel in 2017 and recorded the ‘Geh Vau’ score with her feminist punk band Schapka.
Leni Gruber’s short film ‘Snowman’, the story of a young woman holding on to a wooden statute carved by her sculptor father, won the Local Artist Award at the 2018 Crossing Europe film festival in Linz and received the 2020 dotdotdot audience award.
Many film premieres have fallen victim to the pandemic. Some still saw a cinema start before they went to streaming, such as Sabine Derflinger’s acclaimed documentary ‘Die Dohnal’ about Johanna Dohnal (1939–2010), Austria’s first minister of women’s affairs and an icon of the women’s movement even today.
Katrin Butt’s short ‘Mr. Trump feiert Thanksgiving’ failed to hit the screens because of the pandemic. And while Donald Trump is history, Covid looks set to be with us for some time to come.
The ‘filmkoop wien’ cooperative offers the equipment and space to work with Super 8, 16mm and 35mm films. Its heart is the darkroom: the only place left in Austria today where you can still develop and edit analogue films in various formats on editing tables.
And sixpackfilm – founded in 1990 to organize a found footage festival – has evolved into a globally successful distributor that sends 40 to 50 films to festivals around the world every year.
▶ www.vodclub.online, www.dotdotdot.at
▶ filmkoop. Wickenburggasse 15/Stiege 3 (Innenhof)
www.filmkoopwien.at
▶ 7., Neubaugasse 64–66. www.schulefriedlkubelka.at
▶ 7., Neubaugasse 45/13. www.sixpackfilm.com
