| Carl Mayer Screenplay Award | 2026 |

Theme 2026: TEMPO
For an anonymously submitted fictional or documentary treatment suitable for cinema.
Prize money: € 15,000 (main prize) and € 7,500 (sponsorship prize), initiated, organised and donated by the City of Graz Department of Culture as part of the Diagonale.

Main Prize endowed with € 15,000
| Hans –or– Don’t Bury Me in the Grave of My Father | by Peter Pflügler |

Jury Statement:
“By the time of his death, amateur photographer Hans had taken over 1,000 self-portraits. When Peter stumbles upon this collection, a veritable repository and treasure trove of time unfolds – a sort of analogue, tactile Instagram before its time. But who was this great-great-uncle Hans, about whom nobody in the family really knows or talks, and who was apparently laughed at because he was ‘strange’?
Peter wants to know more and tries to break the family silence. What begins as a documentary quest becomes an experiment in form; dreams haunt the protagonist, and the lines between documentary and staging blur, underscoring the project’s relevance, particularly against the backdrop of image production in the age of artificial intelligence. Increasingly, the search for ‘truth’ comes into focus, both in the narrative and in the overarching techniques of film and photography, and Hans’s fate and talents begin to be reflected in the wider family biographies, not least in Peter’s own life. Sensitively constructed and underpinned by photographic and cinematic strategies, buried family traumas – attempted and actual suicide, loneliness, abuse – rise to the surface, bringing people closer together who, through various twists and turns, had believed themselves lost to one another. When Peter learns that Hans is buried in the cemetery alongside his abusive father, against his expressly stated wishes, he does everything in his power, in the face of family resistance, to make amends almost 30 years later.”

Sponsorship Prize endowed with € 7,500
| Wurzel und Wind | by Reza Rasouli |

Jury Statement:
“Sixteen-year-old Leila is pregnant. She and her boyfriend Konsti decide to have an abortion, but the 600 euros required seem like an insurmountable hurdle, and her parents mustn’t find out. So she sells her beloved scooter, her drone, and even her own hair; she borrows money or takes it from her mother’s purse. When her mother notices the theft and confronts her son Konsti, a domino effect of supposedly well-meaning actions and advice is set in motion. A multi-perspective drama unfolds at breakneck speed, in which all the characters carry light and shadow within them: every small gesture, every detail already has consequences in this early treatment form.
On a broader level, both the parents and the teenagers seem to be wrestling, each in their own way, with the idea of settling down – or leaving. To Syria, the homeland of Leila’s family; to the USA, where Konsti’s father lives; to God, to whom his mother turned after a cancer diagnosis. The diasporic experience of Leila’s family is anchored in Vienna with an unusual sense of matter-of-factness. It is remarkable how the author thereby subverts expectations and goes against the grain of clichés. For this alone, we as the jury would like to express our heartfelt thanks.”

Jury 2026:
Felix von Boehm (Producer, DE)
Sebastian Höglinger (Jury chairman, AT)
Klemens Hufnagl (Cinematographer, screenwriter, previous year’s award winner, AT)
Alexandra Makarová (Screenwriter, director, AT)
Françoise von Roy (Dramaturge, DE)