| Diagonale Award Short Film 2026 |

| FOR BEST SHORT FICTION FILM |

Franz Quitt
Closed for the Virus Break

Jury Statement:
The award goes to a film that reminds us of a collective experience which, paradoxically, was shaped by isolation and separation. It is a film that is both loud and quietly observant, telling a story of individual emancipation and of the significance and resilience of human contact and social bonds emerging out of isolation. With a poetic visual language that is never intrusive and never serves merely as an aesthetic end in itself, the film translates the deeply human longing for physicality, touch, and connection into tactile, warm images.

Analog film material that breathes, lives, and feels alive functions here as a counterpoint to digital overstimulation and sterility. This is a film that moves us and celebrates movement itself, as empty streets and spaces are reclaimed through dance, thereby re-establishing a public sphere in which people genuinely care for one another. We hope that this film, which we watch in the cinema as a social, civic, and communal space, will continue on its path to inspire many more viewers toward this humanity.

Jury Short Fiction:
Isabella Brunäcker (Director & Screenwriter, AT)
Laura Walde (Curator & Film Scholar, CH)
Georg Weiss (Cinematographer, AT)