Here you can the complete press kit

PREVIEW PRESS CONFERENCE
FIRST HIGHLIGHTS OF VIENNALE 2013
OCTOBER 24—NOVEMBER 6
Vienna, August 23, 2013
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,
we welcome the opportunity to inform you about the current state of preparations for the Viennale 2013. This
year’s festival will take place from October 24 to November 6.
With the enclosed press information we would like to give you an initial preview, and inform you about some of
the highlights of the 51st Viennale. In addition, we would like to introduce to you the festival’s poster subjects
and the retrospective.
You can visit our website www.viennale.at, where you'll find updated information; you can download press information and photos at www.viennale.at/de/presse/download.
If you have any further questions, please don’t hesistate to contact us.
With kind regards,
The Viennale press team
[email protected]
Fredi Themel 01/526 59 47-30
Birgit Ecker 01/526 59 47-33
Antonella Cerullo 01/526 59 47-20
Accreditation, from September 2:
Antonella Cerullo 01/526 59 47-20
[email protected]
(Accreditation requests until October 4)
Viennale
Vienna International Film Festival
Siebensterngasse 2
1070 Vienna
printed by
VIENNALE 2013
OCTOBER 24 TO NOVEMBER 6
VIENNALE 2013
Poster Subjects of the Viennale 2013
MAIN PROGRAM OF THE VIENNALE 2013
Feature Films
Documentaries
BETWEEN SEVILLE AND LAS VEGAS
Spanish Filmmaker Gonzalo García Pelayo – An Obscure Exponent of World Cinema
WILD ETHNOGRAPHY
The Work of Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab
ASIAN DELIGHT
Examples of a New Asian Genre Cinema in 3D – A Midnight Program
… BUT THE NEXT MORNING
Two Great Serials of the History of Cinema by Louis Feuillade and Jacques Rivette
RETROSPECTIVE
Jerry Lewis
VIENNALE 2013
In principle, the Viennale has to reinvent itself every year. Although there are many constants, such as the available movie theaters, the festival center, the basic program structure, reliable partners and a fixed budget, the festival has to be imbued with life over and over again. That’s the expectation.
Like on an empty sheet of paper, on a white screen, in a waiting cinema hall – time and time again something
starts anew, arousing excitement and curiosity about what might unfold. That’s our greatest concern and challenge. In a few weeks a new festival will begin.
The Poster Subjects of the Viennale 2013
As in previous years, two posters accompany the festival, one featuring the logo of the Viennale 2013 and another
promoting the annual retrospective, realized in conjunction with the Austrian Filmmuseum. Like last year, the
Viennale 2013 logo is based on an image by the eminent British research scientist and pioneer of photography,
William Henry Fox Talbot. Without intending to attach too much significance to this 150-year-old picture, we
were fascinated by the character of the photograph – a light-image in the true sense of the word. This small piece
of fabric or tissue creates a wonderful and mysterious and at the same time trivial and mundane impression.
Thus, this image, composed exclusively of light and shadow, can stand as an emblem for the cinematic – or whatever one might associate with it.
The poster for the retrospective shows the great American director and actor Jerry Lewis, suspended between
heaven and earth, so to speak, desperate, yet defying gravity, panicky and in total command at the same time.
“The child and the monster,” as his long-time friend and colleague Dean Martin once called him. A still taken from
the film THE LADIES MAN by and with Jerry Lewis from the year 1961.
Viennale 2013
Retrospektive 2013
VIENNALE
V I E N NA L E • F
FILMMUSEUM
ILMMUSEUM
RETROSPEKT IVE
JJERRY
ERRY LEWIS
LEWIS
24. OKTOBER BIS 6. NOVEMBER 2013
118.
8. O
OKTOBER
KTOBER – 24.
24 . N
NOVEMBER
OVE M BER 2013
2013
www . viennale.at • www . filmmuseum.at
0800 664 013 A1-FREELINE • TICKETS AB 19. OKTOBER • WWW.VIENNALE.AT
Österreichisches Filmmuseum • 1010 Wien, Augustinerstraße 1, Tel. 533 70 54
MAIN PROGRAM OF THE VIENNALE 2013
A preview
An issue that has been raised repeatedly over the years is whether the Viennale has a festival motto, a main focus
– in short, any general orientation. For many years, however, the Viennale has allowed itself the luxury of being
a festival without a big headline, an event that cannot be subsumed under any given category. In the majority of
cases such categories are auxiliary constructions for public relations and marketing, obstructing the truly open,
temporary and lively character of a festival program.
Nevertheless, every film selection consists of a complex network, discernible outlines, primary routes and branch
lines. This is also the case with the present, preliminary program of the upcoming Viennale 2013.
What’s striking, for example, is the rich, multifaceted selection of new German films, including works by Philipp
Hartmann, Harun Farocki, Karl Heil, Ramon Zürcher, Thomas Arslan and Julian Radlmaier as well as the word
premiere of KEIN GROSSES DING (“No Big Deal”) by Klaus Lemke and the film adaptation of the Robert Musil
play DIE SCHWÄRMER (“The Enthusiasts”) by Johanna Pauline Maier.
Then there are examples of intellectual, colorful, genre cinema such as the South Korean film NEW WORLD by
Park Hoon-jung, THE BAY by Barry Levinson and the Filipino production TIKTIK: THE ASWANG CHRONICLES by
Erik Matti, as well as a selection of English-language comedies including THE DIRTIES, COMPUTER CHESS, SOFT
IN THE HEAD and PRINCE AVALANCHE.
The great event among this year’s documentary films is undoubtedly the Austrian premiere of LE DERNIER DES
INJUSTES (“The Last of the Unjust”), a three-and-a-half-hour cinematic portrait of the Viennese rabbi and last
president of the Jewish Council in Theresienstadt, Benjamin Murmelstein. Claude Lanzmann, who will personally
present his film in Vienna, tells the story of a torn survivor in deeply impressive conversations and encounters.
Other films, such as 12 O’CLOCK BOYS, THE GREAT FLOOD, LET THE FIRE BURN and OUR NIXON , provide fascinating documentary material for the understanding of American standards, contemporary and cultural history.
These are just a few highlights providing an overview of a program that is still a work in progress. The complete
program will be announced in mid October. Surprises included
NEW WORLD
Park Hoon-jung, South Korea 2013
VIOLA
Matías Piñeiro, Argentina 2012
FIRST COUSIN ONCE REMOVED
Alan Berliner, USA 2011
Selection from the feature film program
AVANTI POPOLO Michael Wahrmann, Brazil 2012
THE BAY Barry Levinson, USA 2012
CAMILLE CLAUDEL 1915 Bruno Dumont, France 2012
COMPUTER CHESS Andrew Bujalski, USA 2013
DAST-NEVESHTEHAA NEMISOOZAND Mohammad Rasoulof, Iran 2013
THE DIRTIES Matt Johnson, Canada 2013
DU ZHAN Johnnie To, Hong Kong/China 2012
EIN GESPENST GEHT UM IN EUROPA Julian Radlmaier, Germany 2012
GRZELI NATELI DGEEBI Nana Ekvtimishvili, Simon Groß, Georgia/Germany/France 2013
HISTORIA DE LA MEVA MORT Albert Serra, Spain/France 2013
L’INCONNU DU LAC Alain Guiraudie, France 2013
JIMMY P. (PSYCHOTHERAPY OF A PLAINS INDIAN) Arnaud Desplechin, USA/France 2013
KEIN GROSSES DING Klaus Lemke, Germany 2013
EL LORO Y EL CISNE Alejo Moguillansky, Argentina 2013
METRAN MEN HADA AL-TURAB Ahmad Natche, Palestine 2012
NEW WORLD Park Hoon-jung, South Korea 2013
OKTOBER NOVEMBER Götz Spielmann, Austria 2013
PRINCE AVALANCHE David Gordon Green, USA 2013
P3ND3J05 Raúl Perrone, Argentina 2013
O QUINTO EVANXEO DE GASPAR HAUSER Alberto Gracia, Spain 2013
DIE SCHWÄRMER Johanna Pauline Maier, Germany 2013
SHIRLEY – VISIONS OF REALITY Gustav Deutsch, Austria 2013
SOFT IN THE HEAD Nathan Silver, USA 2013
TIKTIK: THE ASWANG CHRONICLES Erik Matti, Philippines 2012
U RI SUNHI HONG Sangsoo, South Korea 2013
UPSTREAM COLOR Shane Carruth, USA 2012
VIOLA Matías Piñeiro, Argentina 2012
Selection from the documentary program
12 O’CLOCK BOYS Lotfy Nathan, USA 2013
ARGERICH Stéphanie Argerich, Switzerland/France 2012
BAMBI Sébastien Lifshitz, France 2012
LE DERNIER DES INJUSTES Claude Lanzmann, France/Austria 2013
FIRST COUSIN ONCE REMOVED Alan Berliner, USA 2011
THE GREAT FLOOD Bill Morrison, USA 2012
GUT RENOVATION Su Friedrich, USA 2012
HÉLIO OITICICA Cesar Oiticica Filho, Brazil 2012
I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN A DREAMER Sabine Gruffat, USA 2012
JODOROWSKY'S DUNE Frank Pavich, USA 2013
LACRAU João Vladimiro, Portugal 2012
LET THE FIRE BURN Jason Osder, USA 2013
MILLE SOLEILS Mati Diop, France 2013
NORTHERN LIGHT Nick Bentgen, USA 2013
OUR NIXON Penny Lane, USA 2013
RICARDO BÄR Nele Wohlatz, Gerardo Naumann, Argentina 2013
TERRA DE NINGUÉM Salomé Lamas, Portugal 2012
WEEKEND OF A CHAMPION Frank Simon, USA 1972/2012
DIE ZEIT VERGEHT WIE EIN BRÜLLENDER LÖWE Philipp Hartmann, Germany 2013
Between Seville and Las Vegas
Spanish filmmaker Gonzalo García Pelayo: An obscure exponent of world cinema
With Gonzalo García Pelayo, the Viennale presents a great mystery man of Spanish cinema, a director whose
work has never been shown in its entirety outside his home country. Comprising merely five films, created between 1976 and 1982, Pelayo’s œuvre is characterized by the historic moment of transition following the end of
Franco’s dictatorship and deeply rooted in the history and people of his native Andalusia.
His films are a strangely hybrid and iridescent combination of folkloristic aspects, experimental cinema, erotic
obsessions and wild stylistic inconsistencies, carried by a great love of music as well as the language and landscapes of southern Spain. An ever-surprising confrontation of subtle, cinematographic interventions and the
rough gesture of a great primitive. In his most important works, MANUELA (1976), VIVIR EN SEVILLA (1978) and
ROCíO Y JOSé (1982), Pelayo’s iconoclastic creative work shifts between such different genres as melodrama,
essay, documentary and soft porn.
Since 1982, “abandoned by cinema,” as he claims, the adventurer and gambler Gonzalo García Pelayo has
been dedicating himself to music production, the organization of bullfights, and, finally, along with his brothers,
to systematic gambling. Casino Vienna, too, can tell you a thing or two about that, as he relieved it of a few million
schillings in the 1980s.
It wasn’t until this year that Pelayo returned to the cinema after more than 30 years to create a new work,
ALEGRíAS DE CáDIZ , which will have its world premiere at the Viennale.
A program curated by Álvaro Arroba.
Wild Ethnography
The Work of Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab
Within a few years, a department at Harvard University in Boston, USA, has become one of the most interesting
and exciting production facilities for current documentary cinema in the world.
The so-called Sensory Ethnography Lab (SEL), however, is not a department for classic documentary film in
the strict sense of the word, but rather an open place for cinematographic research and experiments. It is a seismographic laboratory of images and sounds that has largely distanced itself from conventional documentary
practices and ethnographic ideas, creating its own, fascinating cosmos of audiovisual productions.
The Viennale is the first international festival to dedicate a special program to SEL, documenting the wide variety and sensory fascination of this lab’s various working methods and productions.
In recent years, several films created in Harvard have attracted great international attention and received a
number of prizes, including SWEETGRASS by Lucien Castaing-Taylor, FOREIGN PARTS by Verena Paravel and J.P.
Sniadecki, LEVIATHAN by Verena Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor, and, most recently, Stephanie Spray’s and
Pacho Velez’s MANAKAMANA , which was awarded a Golden Leopard at the 2013 Locarno Film Festival. From the
rural work with flocks of sheep to the micro-economics of spare-part car dealership in Brooklyn, from industrial
fishing to pilgrimage traditions in Nepal – the realities and worlds that SEL films devote themselves to and explore
are as rich, surprising and multi-faceted as the sensory approaches and specific cinematic work of the filmmakers
themselves.
A program curated by Nada Torucar.
Asian Delight
Examples of a New Asian Genre Cinema in 3D – A Midnight Program
While the feeling is that the 3D boom in Hollywood has almost passed its zenith, Asia is still approaching 3D with
a far more open mind. A small, but spectacular midnight program of the Viennale 2013 will present six current
3D films, which were well received in their respective countries of origin.
The legend of the cheeky monkey king Sun Wukong, who takes on the powers of heaven, has been filmed in
the Chinese cultural sphere numerous times in the past. The imaginative animated cartoon THE MONKEY KING:
UPROAR IN HEAVEN (DA NAO TIAN GONG , 1961/1964) by Su Da and Chen Zhihong is regarded as the most famous version. In 2012 this classic was completely restored and adapted to 3D. The tremendous box-office success
of JOURNEY TO THE WEST: CONqUERING THE DEMONS (XI YOU XIANG MO PIAN , 2013), directed by Hong Kong’s
star comedian Stephen Chow, proves the undiminished popularity of the subject matter.
Hong Kong’s 3D production also draws on the city’s rich cinematic legacy. Andrew Lau (INFERNAL AFFAIRS )
shot a remake of a Shaw Brothers classic from the year 1979, entitled THE GUILLOTINES (XUE DI ZI , 2012), which
is both an action-packed and philosophical parable about an imperial élite unit that becomes enmeshed in the
wheels of history. Stephen Fung’s TAI CHI HERO (TAIJI YINGXIONG JUEqI , 2012) picks up the thread of his action
film Tai Chi Zero.
Vikram Bhatt, the grandson of film pioneer Vijay Bhatt, shot the first Indian 3D film with HAUNTED (2011),
scoring great success with his story about a haunted house. Perhaps the biggest surprise of the program is the
sword-combat 3D film THE LADY ASSASSIN (MY NHAN KE , 2013) by Nguyen quang Dung – a spectacular example of Vietnamese action cinema, which is absolutely unknown in this part of the world.
Curated by Andreas Ungerböck and Leo Moser.
… But the Next Morning
Two great serials of the history of cinema by Louis Feuillade and Jacques Rivette
“TV is better than the movies” has recently been a recurring argument in view of new, innovative and primarily
American TV formats. This refers to a number of US television serials, which for the past ten years have been
venerated like a kind of cult by critics, connoisseurs and selected audiences alike. Indeed, actual “sophisticated
communities” have been established around individual series, and these news forms have also found their way
into the program of film festivals. Of course, the characteristic feature of these formats lies in their nature of succession, continuation – essentially in the serial as such.
Revolving around this idea of the serial, which is as old as the history of cinema, is a double program of this
year’s Viennale. It consists of two unconventional as well as central examples – two moments, in which cinema
reinvents itself in its continuation.
The first is the almost seven-hour, twelve-episode serial TIH-MINH (1918) by Louis Feuillade, a production
that has always been overshadowed by his legendary LES VAMPIRES , but is probably the director’s richest and
most mature work. And the second is Jacques Rivette’s mysterious film fleuve OUT1: NOLI ME TANGERE , an unparalleled twelve-hour cinematic daydream in eight episodes that has hardly ever been shown in its entirety.
Both are fantastic stories of amnesia, paranoia and conspiracy; both reveal exorbitant parallel worlds of collapsing collectives, dissolving certainties and labyrinthine tales. According to Jonathan Rosenbaum, the one is
the bourgeoisie’s attempt at self-reflection following the horrors of the First World War, the other the reflection of
bohemian society after the shattered hopes of 1968. Two major, magnificent film serials, connected underground
over half a century. Cinema as the better cinema.
RETROSPECTIVE
JERRY LEWIS
“A Jerry Lewis retrospective in a German-speaking country? Fantastic! I never thought I’d live to see the day! Can
you recommend a cheap hotel in Vienna?” Good grief! Who in the world would want to see that? You Europeans
still like Lewis? Unbelievable!”
These two early reactions to the announcement of the 2013 Jerry Lewis retrospective reflect two classic and opposing camps of film enthusiasts. The first – now in their third generation – primarily reside in Europe and have
venerated the American actor Jerry Lewis since the 1960s. They regard him as the rightful heir to the great classic
film comedians Chaplin, Keaton and Laurel & Hardy, indeed, as the comic actor of American cinema since the
beginning of the sound-film area. They especially admire his extremely physical, grotesque performances and
the true-to-character manner in which he stages his own films as a director. To them, Lewis is an auteur par excellence – a fully accomplished artist whose films exude a certain aroma in practically every detail and once
you’ve picked up the scent, you become addicted to its sweet fragrance. The film-lovers of the other camp see the
same qualities in Lewis’s oeuvre, sense the same aroma, and are still shaking their heads three generations later.
They consider Lewis to be an egocentric attention-seeker, who has chosen the wrong medium and who should
have stuck with theater, an unsophisticated popular clown lacking urban wit.
Where exactly Jerry Lewis – one may say “the phenomenon Lewis” – marks the dividing line between these two
camps, which in turn stand for two cultural orientations, has been a great, fascinating question in the history of
film that has never really been answered. It also touches upon an issue that is often bashfully brushed aside, as
if one were referring to sexual preferences: HOW am I laughing? Loudly? Unrestrainedly? On the sly? From the
head or from the heart? WHAT actually makes me laugh? Puns? Earthiness? Irony? The absurd? Do I enjoy the
playfulness of comedy? For instance, the playfulness of a lanky and almost absurdly elastic body that displays
an incredible suppleness in the “silliness” with which it, for example, is constantly falling down? Do I enjoy this
suppleness, does it whet my appetite for more? These are some of the essential and intimate questions that “the
phenomenon Lewis” has been posing to audiences time and again for decades, long before any critical reflection.
And the answer is clear.
It is mainly as an “emotive body” – one that provokes physical reactions in the audience through its very nature
and expressive power − that the audience of the great Viennale and Filmmuseum retrospective will perceive Jerry
Lewis in a program of more than 30 films, selected TV productions and a comprehensive documentary. We will
have to be careful in watching this man who was born in New Jersey 87 years ago as Joseph Levitch and started
his career as a pantomime: he has given new meaning to the phrase “I laughed until my sides were aching!”
A German-language catalogue on Jerry Lewis will be published on the occasion of the retrospective, including
new and classic essays, selected interviews, autobiographical material and reviews of all the films shown during
this tribute.
A RETROSPECTIVE BY VIENNALE AND AUSTRIAN FILM MUSEUM
October 18 to November 24, 2013
Österreichisches Filmmuseum, Augustinerstraße 1, 1010 Vienna
Tel. +43/1/533 70 54 • www.filmmuseum.at
Films shown at the retrospective
THAT’S MY BOY 1951, Hal Walker
SAILOR BEWARE 1952, Hal Walker
THE STOOGE 1952, Norman Taurog
THE CADDY 1953, Norman Taurog
LIVING IT UP 1954, Norman Taurog
YOU'RE NEVER TOO YOUNG 1955, Norman Taurog
ARTISTS AND MODELS 1955, Frank Tashlin
PARDNERS 1956, Norman Taurog
HOLLYWOOD OR BUST 1956, Frank Tashlin
ROCK-A-BYE BABY 1958, Frank Tashlin
THE GEISHA BOY 1958, Frank Tashlin
CINDERFELLA 1960, Frank Tashlin
THE BELLBOY 1960, Jerry Lewis
THE LADIES MAN 1961, Jerry Lewis
THE ERRAND BOY 1961, Jerry Lewis
WHO’S MINDING THE STORE 1963, Frank Tashlin
THE NUTTY PROFESSOR 1963, Jerry Lewis
THE DISORDERLY ORDERLY 1964, Frank Tashlin
THE PATSY 1964, Jerry Lewis
THE FAMILY JEWELS 1965, Jerry Lewis
THREE ON A COUCH 1966, Jerry Lewis
THE BIG MOUTH 1967, Jerry Lewis
WHICH WAY TO THE FRONT? 1970, Jerry Lewis
HARDLY WORKING 1980, Jerry Lewis
THE KING OF COMEDY 1983, Martin Scorsese
SMORGASBORD 1983, Jerry Lewis
ARIZONA DREAM 1993, Emir Kusturica
FUNNY BONES 1995, Peter Chelsom
THE COLGATE COMEDY HOUR – 10 excerpts from the TV series (1950–1955)
BONJOUR MONSIEUR LEWIS 1982, Robert Benayoun – documentary in six episodes
We would like to use our summer press briefing as an opportunity to thank our most important supporters
and sponsors without whose generous support the festival would not have been possible in this way.
SUPPORTERS
SPONSORS
VIENNALE HEADQUARTER
MAIN SPONSOR
FESTIVAL SPONSOR
This year’s festival has been achieved thanks to the contribution of a large number of sponsors and partners.
Their names will be announced at our press conference on October 15.
VIENNALE – Vienna International Film Festival
Siebensterngasse 2, 1070 Vienna • T +43/1/526 59 47 • F +43/1/523 41 72
offi[email protected] • www.viennale.at