{"id":89445,"date":"2025-01-16T14:09:36","date_gmt":"2025-01-16T13:09:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.diagonale.at\/?page_id=89445"},"modified":"2025-03-09T19:53:31","modified_gmt":"2025-03-09T18:53:31","slug":"filmgeschichte-oesterreich-eine-satire","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.diagonale.at\/en\/filmgeschichte-oesterreich-eine-satire\/","title":{"rendered":"| Film History | Austria \u2013 A Satire |"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

\n

The program was curated by Claudia Slanar and Dominik Kamalzadeh.<\/span><\/p>\n

To accompany the film program, Czernin Verlag will publish the second volume in the <\/span>Diagonale Edition<\/span><\/i> series <\/span>\u00d6sterreich \u2013 Eine Satire<\/span><\/i>,<\/span><\/i> with contributions by Lucile Dreidemy, Lea Susemichel, Stefan Grissemann, Bert Rebhandl, and Andreas Ungerb\u00f6ck, and others, as well as a prose text by Manuela Tomi\u0107.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Wienfilm 1896-1976 will be shown in a digitally restored version by the Austrian Film Museum and Der Einzug des Rokoko ins Inselreich der Huzzis in a digital version by the Austrian Film Museum, funded by the BMK\u00d6S\/Kulturerbe digital.<\/p>\n

\n

The Films:<\/p>\n

Jetzt oder nie
\nPeter Patzak
\nAT\/CH 1980, 89 min<\/p>\n

Ein perfektes Paar oder die Unzucht wechselt ihre Haut
\nVALIE EXPORT
\nAT 1986, 12 min, OmeU<\/p>\n

Durch dick und d\u00fcnn
\nMargareta Heinrich
\nAT 1986, 70 min, OmeU<\/p>\n

Im Garten der gelben G.
\nAshley Hans Scheirl, Ursula P\u00fcrrer
\nAT 1985, 9 min, kein Dialog<\/p>\n

Einsvierzig
\nUlrich Seidl
\nAT 1980, 16mm, 16 min, OmeU<\/p>\n

Aderla\u00df
\nPeter Tscherkassky
\nAT 1981, 16mm, 11 min, OmeU<\/p>\n

NabelFabel
\nMara Mattuschka
\nAT 1984, 4 min, kein Dialog<\/p>\n

Gezacktes Rinnsal schleicht sich schamlos schenkeln\u00e4ssend an
\nAshley Hans Scheirl, Ursula P\u00fcrrer
\nAT 1985, 4 min, kein Dialog<\/p>\n

Elfriede Jelinek. News from Home 18.8.88
\nVALIE EXPORT
\nAT 1988, 30 min, OmeU<\/p>\n

xxx<\/pre>\n
In 2004, the Diagonale festival trailer featured people laughing, brought together by artist and filmmaker Mara Mattuschka. What was happening? The industry representatives had joined forces for the \u201cGegendiagonale,\u201d a counter event in defiance of the State Secretary for Art and Media at the time, Franz Morak, who had appointed his own team of directors. The gesture of Mattuschka\u2019s cinematic intervention was as simple as it was unequivocal: laughing away the adverse circumstances and laughing in the face of the attempt at political appropriation.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
Laughter as a reaction to the comic, absurd, and ridiculous should accompany this year\u2019s historical special <\/span>\u00d6sterreich \u2013 Eine Satire<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/i> After all, comedy reverses hierarchies: it loves the anarchical power of everything physical and confronts even the most gruesome aspects of history with a mocking grin.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
Austrian film has always had a special relationship to comic distortion: satire and the grotesque have always been favored means for correcting imbalances in the societal structures of their time. The period from the mid-1970s to the late 1980s seems to have been an especially productive period for socio-critical humor. During the Kreisky years and beyond, comedy with a subversive edge and even an enlightening agenda began to emerge. Contemporary protest movements, the struggle for women\u2019s and minority rights, and the false promises of consumer society were addressed as were the adherence to historical cover-ups and half-truths. The variety of forms that arose at the time stretches across the genres\u2014from feature and television films to essay and experimental films.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
Mara Mattuschka is among the advocates of a humorous and absurd cinema that is rich in distortions and exaggerations with its humor anchored in the physical. In her short <\/span>NabelFabel<\/span> (1984), in the artist\u2019s attempt to rebirth herself, her head and body become distorted\u2014still using analogue means at the time. Conversely, the experimental feature film <\/span>Der Einzug des Rokoko ins Inselreich der Huzzis<\/span><\/i>, which Mattuschka made together with Andreas Karner and Hans Werner Poschauko in 1989, is a wild collage, a pastiche of ideas, styles, pomp, and camp.<\/span><\/p>\n
Ursula P\u00fcrrer\u2019s and Ashley Hans Scheirl\u2019s films are characterized by queer physicality and a humor that plays with gleeful \u201cproliferation\u201d as well as shock moments and blatant disregard for traditional gender identities. VALIE EXPORT also explores the feminist-subversive potential of satire: <\/span>Ein perfektes Paar oder die Unzucht wechselt ihre Haut<\/span><\/i> (1986) is likewise a historically interesting documentary featuring several protagonists of the art scene at the time. Margareta Heinrich\u2019s feature film <\/span>Durch dick und d\u00fcnn<\/span><\/i> (1986) proves to be nothing short of visionary, offering a multi-leveled critique of outdated images of women and beauty ideals.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
\n
\"Frau<\/p>\n
Durch dick und d\u00fcnn by Margareta Heinrich \u00a9 ORF<\/p>\n
Nonetheless, satire and humor also have important historical-political functions.\u00a0 The frequently discussed television film <\/span>Staatsoperette<\/span><\/i> (1977) by director Franz Novotny and composer Otto M. Zykan caused a scandal even before its first broadcast on ORF and heralded a turning point in Austria\u2019s official self-representation with regard to the Third Reich. <\/span>Also exploring the <\/span>media image of the country\u2019s (historical) identity are <\/span>Krieg in Wien<\/span><\/i> (1989) by Michael Glawogger and Ulrich Seidl and <\/span>Wienfilm 1896\u20131976<\/span><\/i> (1977) by Ernst Schmidt jr.<\/span><\/p>\n
On the other hand, in<\/span> Jetzt oder nie<\/span><\/i>,<\/span><\/i> Peter Patzak (director) and Helmut Zenker (screenplay) put humor at the service of the \u201cordinary people\u201d who are usually overlooked by those in power. With a humanistic gesture, Patzak\/Zenker give them the means to change the conditions of inequality: a gentle revolution, that expresses itself in new, altered forms of living together as a society.
\n(Dominik Kamalzadeh and Claudia <\/span>Slanar)<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
The Diagonale would like to thank the ORF Archive and the Austrian Film Museum for their support.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
xxx<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
  The program was curated by Claudia Slanar and Dominik Kamalzadeh. To accompany the film program, Czernin Verlag will publish the second volume in the Diagonale Edition series \u00d6sterreich \u2013 Eine Satire, with contributions by Lucile Dreidemy, Lea Susemichel, Stefan Grissemann, Bert Rebhandl, and Andreas Ungerb\u00f6ck, and others, as well as a prose text by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-89445","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diagonale.at\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/89445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diagonale.at\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diagonale.at\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diagonale.at\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diagonale.at\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diagonale.at\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/89445\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diagonale.at\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}