Viennale 2022: The Fires of Cinema
The Viennale is one of the last big film festivals of the year, to which I return every time as if I were a pilgrim. Perhaps because my cinephile (and, to a large extent, even personal) life is divided into a before and after. Maybe because it's a festival with a unique artistic vision. Maybe because it is – of the big festivals – one of those that most respects the twin institutions of film criticism and curatorship, not just in terms of its guests, but also in terms of its contributions to the fields. Perhaps because this is the place where, year after year, the greatest filmmakers of the moment converge, finally freed from the hectic schedule of their premiere cycles, freed from the pressure of the emergent discourse about their work, who are joined by critics, scholars, historians and, in general, by those who think about cinema. It's a royale of cinema, which is now in its sixtieth year; to mark its six decades of existence, the festival's approach – devoid of the usual grandiloquent grandstanding seen in other places – has two main components: first, it invited six towering filmmakers (Claire Denis, Nina Menkes, Narcissa Hirsch, Albert Serra, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, and Serghei Loznitsa) to make a trailer for the festival, thus adding them to an illustrious gallery of filmmakers who have shot the Viennale's trailers over the years (David Lynch, Manoel de Oliveira, Chris Marker, Lucrecia Martel, Lav Diaz, Tsai Ming-Liang -- in the last 10 years alone!). Then, it also released a comprehensive, self-reflexive anthology: "On Film Festivals.", featuring interviews, dialogues, and essays (critical or autobiographical) on film curatorship within festivals.
Film critic & journalist. Collaborates with local and international outlets, programs a short film festival - BIEFF, does occasional moderating gigs and is working on a PhD thesis about home movies. At Films in Frame, she writes the monthly editorial - The State of Cinema and is the magazine's main festival reporter.
