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FESTIVALS Austria

Glawogger’s triumph and positive results at Diagonale

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Diagonale – the major Austrian film festival held annually in Graz – closed last week with the triumph of Kill Daddy Good Night [+see also:
trailer
film profile
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by native director Michael Glawogger (whose 2005 documentary Workingman's Death catapulted him onto the international scene). Moreover, the event’s new director, Barbara Pichler, is delighted at the positive results garnered by Diagonale.

Kill Daddy Good Night [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
– presented in the Panorama section at the Berlin Film Festival in February – picked up the award for Best Feature. This French/German/Austrian co-production stars Helmut Köpping, Ulrich Tukur (who hits German screens this week in the blockbuster John Rabe [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, and Austrian screens on April 10), Christian Tramitz and Sabine Timoteo (The Free Will).

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The film centres on a man in his thirties who invents a video game in which he can repeatedly kill his father. He then receives a cry for help from New York and sinks deeper and deeper into a world of real and virtual murders and dark secrets, whilst witnessing the disintegration of his family.

The prize for Best Austrian Documentary went to Constantin Wulff’s Into the World, which looks at the miracle of birth. Meanwhile, Marco Antoniazzi’s Small Fish won the Audience Award and Marvin Kren’s debut feature Schautag scooped the Young Audience Award.

Best Cinematography awards went to Universalove (Enzo Brandner) and the documentary 7915 km (Nikolaus Geyrhalter). Meanwhile, the BMUKK prize was presented to Götz Spielmann.

Pichler – who took over as artistic director of Diagonale this year – announced that around 17,000 regular admissions were garnered and 41 out of 130 screenings sold out. Provisional figures also show that total audience figures rose.

Viewers showed a particular interest in the retrospectives, the archived images retracing the history of animated film in Austria and the festival’s parallel events. As for the declared aim of attracting more international visitors, the increased number of English-subtitled prints was worthwhile but continued negotiations will be needed to further boost the proportion in the future.

The next edition of the Diagonale festival will take place from March 16-21, 2010.

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(Translated from French)

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