Within the framework of a joint tour together with the Austrian Film Museum and Crossing Europe Film Festival Linz, the Diagonale’21 will premiere Ulrike Ottinger’s Paris Calligrammes (DE/FR 2019) in Graz. Ottinger, who was honored at the Berlinale 2020 for her life work, will be present at the screenings in Linz, Vienna, and Graz.
Diagonale, the Festival of Austrian Film, is showing the cinematic “Figurengedicht” (calligram), which had its world premiere in Berlin in 2020, as an extension of its historical special Sehnsucht 20/21 – City and Desire, as part of its festival series In Reference. An in-depth discussion with Ulrike Ottinger will take place following the screening in Graz (Diagonale im Dialog).
Since the Diagonale and Crossing Europe Film Festival Linz (June 1 to 6) will take place at roughly the same time and as a sign of mutual solidarity, the two festivals will additionally join in presenting the premieres of ten Austrian works, including the world premieres of Motorcity (AT 2021), Arthur Summereder’s first full-length documentary, and 2551.01 (AT 2020), Norbert Pfaffenbichler’s free adaptation of Charlie Chaplin’s slapstick social drama The Kid.
Premiere tour dates: Paris Calligrammes
Crossing Europe Film Festival Linz
——— Friday, June 4, 2021
Austrian Film Museum, Vienna
——— Tuesday, June 8, 2021
Diagonale – Festival of Austrian Film, Graz
——— Wednesday, June 9, 2021
Ulrike Ottinger, who as a young painter lived in Paris in the 1960s, interweaves her personal memories of bohemian Paris with the serious social, political, and cultural upheavals of that time “into a scintillating self-portrait” (Süddeutsche Zeitung). Like in Prater (Diagonale’08), in which she delved into the fascination and cultural history of the eponymous Viennese amusement park, in Paris Calligrammes, the filmmaker once again creates a “topography of thoughts” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung), telling of an immersed Paris that speaks of the vibrancy of life and also the fragility of all cultural and political achievements.
At the Festival of Austrian Film, Paris Calligrammes will be shown in reference to the historical special planned for the Diagonale’20: Sehnsucht 20/21 – City and Desire revolves around the concepts of city and desire and is a joint program by the Diagonale, Filmarchiv Austria, the Austrian Film Museum, and the ORF Archive.
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Joint world premieres of Motorcity and 2551.01
The pandemic has led to postponement of both the Diagonale and Crossing Europe Film Festival Linz in 2021. Due to the ongoing exceptional state, the two festivals and the Viennese short film festival Vienna Shorts (May 27 to June 1), are collaborating even more intensely this year. The three festivals will take place one right after another in 2021, thus, the premiere status of overlapping program selections will occur parallel. Ten Austrian works will celebrate their shared premieres in the programs of the Diagonale and the Crossing Europe Film Festival Linz, including the world premieres of the feature films Motorcity and 2551.01. Eight short films will also have shared premieres at either the festivals in Graz and Linz (Crossing Europe Film Festival) or in Graz and Vienna (Vienna Shorts). They will be announced as part of the program presentations.
For Motorcity, Arthur Summereder’s first full-length documentary, the filmmaker traveled to Detroit to track down the local drag racing scene. The motors roar, the elaborately tuned vehicles achieve tremendous speeds within an extremely short time: A race lasts only a few seconds. A magical margin in which Detroit of the present and past potentially overlap. The sport congeals to a “purist manifesto” whose disciples push the laws of time and space to their limits.
One-hundred years after Chaplin’s slapstick social drama The Kid, Norbert Pfaffenbichler’s free adaptation of the silent movie leads us into a dystopic underworld in which the lumpen proletariat vegetates away as ugly masked figures. In a sensuous staging of the abject, 2551.01, which has been chosen for the Innovative Cinema competition, tells a story of violence that celebrates not only the suppressed and excluded, but also cinema’s political potential.
The Diagonale’21 will take place from June 8 to 13 in Graz. The entire program will be published on May 28. Ticket sales begin on June 2, 2021.
Detailed Covid-19 safety measures will be announced on our website and regularly updated: diagonale.at/covid-19
Photo material for the premiere tour of Ulrike Ottinger’s Paris Calligrammes can be found here, press stills for the competition films 2551.01 and Motorcity here. General Diagonale press photos are available here.
Press material for the special programs planned for the Diagonale’20: Spotlight on: Jessica Hausner and Sehnsucht 20/21 – City and Desire can be downloaded here and here. Stills from the opening film Fuchs im Bau (D: Arman T. Riahi, AT 2020) as well as exclusive portraits of the film crew are available for download here.
Please contact us if you need any further assistance.
We’re looking forward to welcoming you to Linz, Vienna, and Graz and thank you for covering the event!
Your Diagonale press team
Matthias K. Heschl
Tina Bauer
Eva Kirsch
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Press conferences Diagonale’21
Program presentations
Followed by the program release
——— Thursday, May 27, 2021, Graz
Steiermärkische Sparkasse, Schloßbergsaal
——— Friday, May 28, 2021, Vienna
Program release
Friday, May 28, 2021, 1 p.m.
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Diagonale
Festival des
österreichischen Films
Festival of
Austrian Film
Graz, 8.—13.
Juni 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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