Filmakademie Wien

How is it like to be forced to wait while people are drowning just a few miles away? "No News" gives an insight into the absurdity of European migration policy.

A short directed by Michael Podogil.

On the 3rd of October a twenty-four-year-old student from Vienna kills his lover and chops up her corpse. Her torso is found in a dumpster, other body parts and the head are missing. There is no clue about the motive of the murder. A silent chronology of the events.

A complicated marriage: She has a tumor, he is gay, both of them are keeping it a secret. When their only daughter moves out, he is ready to come out. But that is not going to happen. He arranges a date for a bizarre role-play and she is spying on him, firmly believing that he is having an affair with a younger woman. The chase is on.

Mathias is transgender. Although he is more than sure about his decision to live as a man, he still has to find his way in his new identity and especially in his new job. And also his relationship with his girlfriend seems to have changed due to the transition.

During the organization of their mother’s funeral, two estranged sisters with completely different personalities are forced to face each other once again. They will have to confront their differences, as well as their relationship.

17-year-old Coco wants to become famous. She goes to each audition, but is rejected time and again. On her YouTube channel, she creates a fictional world in which everything is perfect and her self-confidence is based on likes and followers.

The siblings Vroni and Flori observe the goings-on at their parents’ flower stall. Vroni claims to know the future. Aleksey Lapin believes her and shows a microcosm through which the marginalized stroll, while a wind that will change everything brews in the air. A playful ode to the feeling that nothing has to be as it is.

Poetic images of nature in the opening credits lead us on the wrong track. The motorcyclist has been lying under his machine for a long time. At the moment of death, memories emerge. Flashbacks to family history, speechlessness in the face of death in harsh cuts.

Fluctuation at the Vienna football club RSV is high. Coach Robin, who once hosted parties at the Prater sauna, sees his club as a political project, too: Players from various birth nations come together in his “dirty rotten bunch”. Athletic highlights are quite often followed by relegation, discipline and excess are cheek by jowl at RSV. Director Jasmin Baumgartner has followed Robin and his team over several years.

Ingbert, the sock, applies for a position as a double bass player at the Vienna State Orchestra. Bad idea.

When her boyfriend Benni leaves her, Magda is left to live alone in their old apartment. With his departure, his hobby of driving a motorcycle also vanishes from her life. Still clinging to what they once had, Magda enrolls in a motorcycle driving course, but the first few driving hours turn out to be more difficult than expected. When Magda realizes that Benni has already moved on from their relationship, she has to make a decision: Will she throw in the towel or learn to drive on her own?

A gigantic catastrophe has happened and is interrupted for two or three days. Three strangers find themselves stranded on an empty island, between desperation and a hopeless situation. What to do with the remaining time? But on the second day the sea delivers a silent man. The three survivors fall in love with the assumed saviour and forget about the catastrophe.

Mrs. Pospisil lives alone in an apartment in an old building in Vienna. The elderly lady's increasing forgetfulness prompts her son to suggest that she move into a nursing home. But then suddenly a crack opens up in one of the walls of her apartment, through which something enters Mrs. Pospisil's world that will change her life forever. Paul Ertl's highly efficient and picture-perfect The Crack is a psychologically underpinned mid-length horror miniature that transforms into a utopia as casual as it is original as it is gently disturbing, and is ultimately also a powerful plea for the autonomy of older people.

The film follows two days in the life of a former child star who rose to fame nearly 20 years ago in a major sci-fi blockbuster. Overwhelmed by media attention and school issues, he quit acting. Now, he's trying to redefine himself amidst hate comments, public recognition, journalists, and constant comparisons to a colleague from the film set.

Thomas is only 25 and already an alcoholic. He desperately needs help, but it's becoming increasingly difficult for his friends to deal with him - they're distancing themselves. Will it take a biblical catastrophe for him to change?

Carla runs messages throughout a city periphery. She drives, eats, and sleeps in the car.

When the young and shy Louanne moves to Vienna, hungry for life, a kind of friendship, she has never known, develops with her confident flatmate Thaïs.

Mr. Kliminov wakes up in a hospital where no one seems to treat him the right way.

After the death of his parents, Heinrich reunites with his sister Susanne in the abandoned childhood home. But his childhood guilt floats through the silent rooms of the house, and the prospect for reconciliation is remote.