Fuchs im Bau (AT 2020), the new feature film by director Arman T. Riahi, will open the Diagonale’21. The Festival of Austrian Film is planned as a live event and will take place following a strict Covid-19 safety concept from March 16 to 21 in Graz. On opening night, the drama inspired by Wolfgang Riebniger’s experiences as a special-needs teacher at the Vienna-Josefstadt penitentiary will be shown in two successive screenings on the country’s largest screen, in the Helmut List Halle. Fuchs im Bau celebrates its Austrian premiere at the Diagonale’21.
Fuchs im Bau, situated in the atmosphere of a prison school, presents an entirely different tonality from the award-winning director of the successful comedy Die Migrantigen (The Migrumpies, AT 2017): While the character sketches in his celebrated anti-integration parable were deliberately polarizing, in Fuchs im Bau, a much more nuanced spectrum of themes unfolds, which, bearing in mind the scope of the conflicts dealt with, also allows conclusions about the inner structures of society. Fuchs im Bau is a film that exposes the weaknesses of the prison and working conditions in the penitentiary system and in doing so, foregoes classical black-and-white schemata: An emphatic film about courage, coming of age, and the power of education under difficult conditions. With Aleksandar Petrović, Maria Hofstätter (Grand Diagonale Acting Prize 2013), Andreas Lust, Sibel Kekilli, Karl Fischer, and many more, Fuchs im Bau is carried by an impressive ensemble, which together with the young actors around Luna Jordan – who are to be singled out for their immense acting – combines to a grandiose cast. Mario Minichmayr’s precise and agile camera as well as the impulsive soundtrack by Karwan Marouf are among the further features of the film for which Golden Girls Film (Arash T. Riahi and Karin C. Berger) takes responsibility.
“How a society deals with those who have rejected it, allows perhaps the soundest conclusions about itself. Arman T. Riahi turns his focus to the closed – in the truest sense of the word – world of juvenile prisoners and in doing so, expands the gaze we cast on ourselves. Fuchs im Bau is a porous, multiply permeable chamber- and genre-play along the lines of coming of age under difficult conditions. Indebted to major prison film role models, precisely staged, and with a terrific cast, Riahi encounters the milieu shown not only with understanding, but mainly with reason: empathic, illuminative, and – keeping in mind the scope of the conflicts dealt with in society as a whole – anything but inhibited.”
——— Sebastian Höglinger and Peter Schernhuber, Festival Directors
Arman T. Riahi has already been awarded the Diagonale’s Audience Prize twice: for his documentaries Schwarzkopf (AT 2011) and Kinders (AT 2016), realized together with his brother Arash T. Riahi.
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More on Fuchs im Bau
The brushes are counted, the classroom more sparse than inspiring. And nonetheless, the prison school is perhaps the only place at which the juvenile offenders can at least temporarily think of something else in the midst of their triste everyday lives. Elisabeth Berger (Maria Hofstätter) runs the ship here with unconventional methods: Spelling and mathematics are not her top priorities. Instead, she prefers to encounter the rebellious prisoners with quick wit and unallowed excursions to the prison kitchen. When the teacher Hannes Fuchs (Aleksandar Petrović) begins his job here, he first has to grapple with Berger, who doesn’t want to surrender the field to the new teacher without a fight, especially, since under his supervision, a sexual assault occurs involving the sixteen-year-old Samira, which ends in a fight and ultimately solitary confinement for the youth, assumed to be a girl. Gradually, Fuchs gains the trust of the introverted prisoner. Gradually, also trauma from his own past breaks fresh ground.
Building on the experiences from the events that the festival carried out after the cancellation in March 2020 under the label Diagonale’20 – “Die Unvollendete”, the next edition is planned as a modular festival: The Diagonale will rely on Graz as a physical hub and also on an accompanying online offer. Depending on the Covid-19 situation, individual items may be added to or removed from the program, or be adapted as quickly and flexibly as possible. Covid-19 measures that have been meanwhile established and also tried out – for example in the course of the Viennale – should allow the cinema audience on-site film and cultural enjoyment despite the pandemic restrictions. The Diagonale is also in dialogue about this with other cultural events set to take place in the spring.
The Diagonale’21 will take place from March 16 to 21 in Graz. The entire program will be published on March 5. Ticket sales begin on March 10, 2021.
Diagonale press photos can be found here. Stills for the opening film Fuchs im Bau (D: Arman T. Riahi, AT 2020) and exclusive portraits of the film crew are available here for download.
We would be glad to help you with any further information.
We are looking forward to welcoming you in Graz in March and thank you for your coverage of the event!
Your Diagonale press team
Matthias K. Heschl
Tina Bauer
Eva Kirsch
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Dates Press Briefings Diagonale’21
Program presentation followed by program release
Thursday, March 4, 2021, Graz
Steiermärkische Sparkasse, Schloßbergsaal
Friday, March 5, 2021, Vienna
Program release
Friday, March 5, 2021, 1 p.m.
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Diagonale
Festival des
österreichischen Films
Festival of
Austrian Film
Graz, 16.—21.
März 2021
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Büro Wien
Rechnungsadresse
Billing Address
Forum österreichischer Film
Rauhensteingasse 5/5
1010 Wien, Austria
T +43 (0) 1 595 45 56
F +43 (0) 1 595 45 56-10
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Büro Graz
c/o Hotel Weitzer
Grieskai 12–16
8020 Graz, Austria
T +43 (0) 316 82 28 18
F +43 (0) 316 82 28 18-10
office@diagonale.at
www.diagonale.at
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