| Position | Birgit Minichmayr |

A SELECTION OF FILMS DEDICATED TO ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL AUSTRIAN ACTORS OF HER TIME

Birgit Minichmayr in Vienna in October 2026, photographed for Diagonale ’27 | Foto: Stefan Oláh

The Diagonale is delighted to dedicate a Position to actor Birgit Minichmayr at its upcoming 2027 festival edition. Born in Linz in 1977, Minichmayr has captivated audiences on stage ever since her training at the Max Reinhardt Seminar, and on the big screen since making her film debut in 2000.

“The nuanced intensity of Birgit Minichmayr’s acting, a never-ending process of fine-tuning, is like the work of a sculptor who uses hammer and chisel to pare away the superfluous until the raw material becomes a living expression. In this way, she brings forth characters that remain in motion – powerfully three-dimensional, dazzlingly artificial, or unsettlingly reserved.” — Festival Directors Dominik Kamalzadeh and Claudia Slanar

She is currently appearing as a lady’s maid in Ulrike Ottinger’s The Blood Countess and as a grieving, defiant mother in Sandra Wollner’s Everytime. Filming has recently wrapped on Im Verborgenen, Goran Rebić’s latest feature film, in which she portrays activist Eva Arnautović in 1930s Vienna. Her filmography presents a panorama of life-affirming female characters: the idiosyncratic painter Maria Lassnig in Anja Salomonowitz’s Sleeping with a Tiger (2024), the innkeeper in the Brenner crime thriller Der Knochenmann (2009) by Wolfgang Murnberger, and one of the disillusioned friends in Barbara Albert’s Fallen (2006). In addition, she has appeared in international productions such as Maren Ade’s fragile relationship drama Everyone Else (2009). There is no specific type that links these characters – only Minichmayr’s ability to shift between opposites: between assertiveness and vulnerability, physicality and withdrawal, humour and despondency.

It was precisely this ability that also impressed the jury of the Diagonale Acting Award in 2009: “This actor transforms herself into a woman who seems familiar to us all, someone who is ‘completely ordinary’ and yet surprises us with her laughter, her reactions, her silences, her presence.” This was how the jury explained its decision to honour Minichmayr for her performance as a chef and restaurant owner in Der Knochenmann. Ten years later, at the 2019 festival edition, Birgit Minichmayr received the Grand Diagonale Acting Award for Outstanding Contributions to Austrian Film Culture: “Birgit Minichmayr captivates you instantly – you simply cannot take your eyes off her, such is the extraordinary force of her presence. Through her performances and her presence, she has brought an unparalleled intensity to Austrian and international productions alike,” the jury stated at the time. In 2024, she received another Diagonale Acting Award for her portrayal of artist Maria Lassnig in Sleeeping with a Tiger. Once again, the jury was deeply impressed: “It is hard not to feel a sense of trepidation watching this daring high-wire act through the life of Maria Lassnig, whom Birgit Minichmayr embodies with breathtaking brilliance and an extraordinary affinity for her subject – without a safety net and entirely without a mask.”

With its Position dedicated to Birgit Minichmayr, one of the most influential Austrian actors of her time, the Diagonale marks its anniversary year by looking back not only on an extraordinary range of acting achievements, but also on a chapter of Austrian film history.

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Diagonale would like to thank Gartenbaukino for its kind assistance with the photo shoot.