Everytime wins Vienna Film Award as Viennale closes

The Viennale closed after 13 days with a slight rise in ticket sales and the Vienna Film Award for Sandra Wollner’s “Everytime”, ORF reported. The festival sold 78,800 tickets, 200 more than last year, and 112 of its 330 public screenings sold out.

At the closing gala at Vienna’s Gartenbaukino, festival director Eva Sangiorgi sent off audiences with “Loneliest Man in Town”, directed by Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel and featuring Vienna blues musician Al Cook. The festival’s headquarters at the Funkhaus welcomed 3,500 guests. Attendance capacity remained steady at about 78.5 per cent.

The Vienna Film Award, funded by the city and worth 11,000 euros plus hotel accommodation, went to Wollner’s film about grief, starring Birgit Minichmayr. The Austrian-German co-production will compete in this year’s international Oscar race for Germany. Jury curator Astrid Peterle said the film challenged ideas about how grief and loss should be portrayed, favouring quiet moments and unspoken feelings over voyeurism and melodrama.

The jury’s special award, worth 6,000 euros plus hotel accommodation, went to “Militantropos”, a documentary by Alina Gorlova, Yelizaveta Smith and Simon Mozgovyi about everyday life during the war in Ukraine. The jury said the film focused on people for whom war is not news but daily life.

Johann Lurf’s 21-minute visual essay “Forever…Forever”, the festival’s opening film, received the 10,000-euro Erste Bank Film Award. The Standard’s audience award went to Peter Badel and Chris Wright’s “Übergang”, a tribute to the late Thomas Heise. The prize includes advertising worth 25,000 euros.

The international film critics’ association awarded its FIPRESCI prize to Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo for “Ben’imana”, a film about the genocide in Rwanda. Sangiorgi’s contract as festival director runs through the 2028 edition, while the contract of managing director Paolo Calamita has been extended to 2030.