Outstanding Artist Award for Experimental Film 2025 goes to Sasha Pirker
This year's BMWKMS', the Austrian Ministry for Culture's, Outstanding Artist Award in the Experimental Film category goes to Sasha Pirker. We quote from the jury's statement: "For over two decades, Sasha Pirker has been working at the intersection of (feminist) film, art and architectural history. High formal concentration and conceptual clarity are essential characteristics of her work. The artist combines feminist perspectives with subtle irony and negotiates spaces whose social structures are reflected in a clever and multi-layered way. Humor functions as a precise means of irritation. For Pirker, architecture is not only an object, but also a carrier of stories, attitudes and atmospheres - readable as a mirror and framework of human experience, which she subtly brings together in her films with a subtle sense of tempo, rhythm and visual composition."
We warmly congratulate Sasha - and we recommend you keep an eye out for her latest work Everyone deserves a Slice of the Pie at festivals this summer/fall.
"Bleifrei 95": World Premier at Locarno Film Festival 2025 and more good festival news
Bleifrei 95, the short film debut by Emma Hütt and Tina Muffler, has been invited to the competition of the Pardi di Domani section at Locarno Film Festival, where it will celebrate its world premiere on August 7. (Photo: Poster/ Detail "Bleifrei 95")
Ivette Löcker's latest documentary Our Time Will Come will soon be shown in competition at 31st Sarajevo Film Festival.
Henry Fonda for President by Alexander Horwath and Some Memories by Lotte Schreiber can both be seen in the program of the renowned Dokufest Prizren.
Melbourne International Film Festival is showing She Dolls with Dollies by Karin Fisslthaler and Revolving Rounds by Johann Lurf and Christina Jauernik.
The Garden of Electric Delight by Billy Roisz, Beautiful Dead Woman by Jan Soldat and Karin Fisslthaler's She Dolls with Dollies were selected for the 36th edition of the Brazilian Festival Internacional de Curtas de São Paulo.
THE LIFE OF SEAN DELEAR awarded at Ethnocineca
The Austrian Documentary Award 2025 of this year's Ethnocineca, Vienna's international documentary film festival, went this year to Markus Zizenbacher for his energetic portrait The Life of Sean DeLear. Congratulations !
CROSSING EUROPE Award – Local Artist 2025 for "A Life in Color"
We are extremely happy to share the news that Axel Stasny's documentary feature A Life in Color has received the Local Artist Award at this year's Crossing Europe Film Festival Linz.
The Jury Statement reads as follows: "This film impressed us with its affectionate and precise approach to its protagonist. Using great documentary caution and delicately playing with closeness, distance, and the unsaid, it approaches Eleanor, who shares her compulsion to live and love with disarming openness. ,Perfection escapes me,' she sighs – and yet, she always remains connected to an idea of what perfection could mean to her. It is an aside where Eleanor boils down the power of this film: ,You want to show how it really is. Fantastic! I, too, want to be how I really am.' The compassionately used soundtrack harmoniously underscores Eleanor’s personality and is still echoing within us even days later."
Our heartfelt congrats to Axel – and to all award-winning filmmakers of this year's festival!
Photo © Ines Mayer / subtext.at
Festivalnews: From Jeonju to Oberhausen and Annecy …
We are delighted to announce a selection of fantastic festival premieres and invitations for current sixpackfilm titles:
Jeonju International Film Festival, South Korea
Sugarland (Isabella Brunäcker), Revolving Rounds (Christina Jauernik/Johann Lurf), Mare Imbrium (Siegfried A. Fruhauf)
Int. Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Germany
Jelena (Friedl vom Gröller), Simultaneously Naked (Ursula Pürrer/Ashley Hans Scheirl), Some Memories (Lotte Schreiber), I Saw You Were Dancing (Sarah Pech), Distributors' Collection by sixpackfilm "If it doesn't fit" (Short film program)
Annecy Int. Animation Film Festival, France
Stampfer Dreams (Thomas Renoldner), The Prologue (Marzie Emadi/Sina Saadat)
DOK.fest Munich, Germany
A Life in Color (Axel Stasny), È A QUESTO PUNTO CHE NASCE IL BISOGNO DI FARE STORIA (Constanze Ruhm)
SIFF – Seattle Int. Film Festival, USA
On the high seas. Part 1: The burgeoning decision to go on a journey willy-nillya (Ralf-Joachim Petersen), She Dolls With Dollies (Karin Fisslthaler)
tbc…
Two Awards at 63rd Ann Arbor Film Festival
We are very happy to announce that short film animation Tako Tsubo (photo) by Eva Pedroza and Fanny Sorgo has won Prix DeVarti for Funniest Film at this year's Ann Arbor Film Festival.
Furthermore, Lukas Marxt and Vanja Smiljanić received a Jury Award for experimental doc AMONG THE PALMS THE BOMB, or: Looking for reflections in the toxic field of plenty - jury note: "It’s a good idea not to blow people up with nuclear bombs."
Heartfelt congrats to all the filmmakers!
Diagonale 2025: Six Awards for sixpackfilm-Films
We are very happy about the awards at this year's Diagonale for the following films represented by sixpackfilm and congratulate all the filmmakers warmly:
For Out of Sight (AT 2025, 78min), Lisa Polster received both the Grand Diagonale Prize of the Province of Styria/ Best Documentary Film and the Diagonale Prize of the Youth Jury for the Best Newcomer Film.
The jury statements can be found here and here.
Josephine Ahnelt received another main prize, namely for best short documentary film, for lll (AT 2025, 17 min). And Michael Palm was honored Monday evening in Graz for best artistic montage/ documentary for Alexander Horwath's Henry Fonda for President (AT/DE 2024, 184 min).
Isabella Brunäcker had already been awarded the Kodak Analog Film Prize for her feature film debut Sugarland (AT 2025, 86 min) at its world premiere at the festival. And last, but not least, Maria Lisa Pichler and Lukas Schöffel got the prestigious Franz Grabner Prize 2025 for cinema documentary for Mâine Mă Duc - Tomorrow I Leave (AT 2024, 75 min).
Foto: Lisa Polster | Bester Dokumentarfilm & Preis der Jugendjury© Harald Wawrzyniak
sixpackfilm @ Diagonale 2025
On Thursday, March 27, the Diagonale opens in Graz. sixpackfilm is extremely happy to be represented again in 2025 with a broad variety of great new and historical works in the main and special programs of the festival of Austrian film.
We'll be celebrating the world premieres of Sugarland, the feature film debut by Isabella Brunäcker, in competition for the Grand Diagonal Prize – a road movie that sends two seekers on a journey together (photo), and of the following short films: Everyone Deserves a Slice of the Pie by Sasha Pirker, Diamond & Narcissus - الماس و نرگس by Barbara Wolfram, lll by Josephine Ahnelt, The Prologue by Marzieh Emadi & Sina Saada, The Many Ways to Avert One's Eyes by Eszter Katalin and White Ribbons by Michael Heindl.
Some of them have already won awards at international festivals and can now be seen in Austria for the first time: 2551.03 - The End by Norbert Pfaffenbichler, Milena Fina on the Phone by Albert Sackl, Becoming Outline by Miriam Bajtala, Out of Sight/ Bürglkopf by Lisa Polster, È A QUESTO PUNTO CHE NASCE IL BISOGNO DI FARE STORIA by Constanze Ruhm, The Life of Sean DeLear by Markus Zizenbacher, The Big Day/ Schützenfest by Lennart Hüper & Lennart Miketta, and What the Night speaks - a Story by veteran avantgarde filmmaker Hans Scheugl.
And we are pleased no less that new films by Helin Çelik, Josef Dabernig, Karin Fisslthaler, Michaela Grill & Karl Lemieux, Friedl vom Gröller, Alexander Horwath, Johann Lurf & Christina Jauernik, Christiana Perschon, Ursula Pürrer & Ashley Hans Scheirl, Thomas Renoldner, Lukas Valenta Rinner and Billy Roisz will now also be shown on the big screen in Graz following their (inter)national festival appearances.
Ivette Löcker, whose most recent work Our Time Will Come is also celebrating its Austrian premiere in the Diagonale Competition following its premiere at the Berlinale Forum, has a Position dedicated to her this year: this retrospective comprises three feature-length and three short works by the award-winning documentary filmmaker.
As the winner of the Diagonale Innovative Film 2024 award, Simona Obholzer not only designed this year's festival trailer The Lawn is the Most Pleasant Sight in the Scenery, but also an exhibition at Kunsthaus Graz, Pleasing to the eye, soft on the feet, which opens on Friday, March 28 and runs until April 21.
Katharina Copony is greatly missed, in Graz this year as well. Diagonale will be showing At the Barracks (2019), a cinematic reflection on her own family history, and her last published short film Tu Harimau (That's the Tiger) from 2021 in remembrance of the filmmaker who sadly passed last fall.
INDEX Edition #53: Release und Präsentation – Moucle Blackout. Filme 1969-1998
Der 53. Release der INDEX Edition ist dem filmischen Werk von Moucle Blackout (Christiane Adrian-Engländer, geb. 1935 in Prag, lebt in Wien) gewidmet. Nach Claus Homschaks und Elfriede Jelineks Ramsau am Dachstein ist es die zweite Auskopplung in neuem Format: als Buchpublikation mit Filmdownload. Kürzlich hat das Belvedere drei Filme von Moucle Blackout für seine Sammlung erworben. Aus gegebenem Anlass wird die Publikation MOUCLE BLACKOUT. Filme 1969 – 1998. Es war eine Herausforderung, diesem Namen gerecht zu werden* im Rahmen eines Sonderscreenings im Belvedere 21 / Blickle Kino präsentiert.
Berlinale 2025: World Premieres and Reprises
While Ivette Löcker's latest documentary film Our Time Will Come will celebrate its world premiere Berlinale Forum 2025, Uscita di Sicurezza by Friedl vom Gröller has been invited to the Critics' Week. We are also delighted about a number of reprises: CRASH SITE by Constanze Ruhm will be shown again in the Forum Expanded anniversary programme, as will Happy Doom by Billy Roisz in the Berlinale Shorts Revisited. We are very much looking forward to it!
