Specials
Festival Avenue

Follow the VIS tracks on your way to the cinema! En route from the festival centre to the cinema, in the Asifakeil in the Electric Avenue, the video installation CERVINARA by Thomas Steiner are displayed daily. And in the festival’s video library fs21 accredited guests can watch all films in the international competition again on the small screen. The Leopold Museum hosts the programme Projecting Architecture every evening from 8.30 to 10 p.m..
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EXPERIMENTAL NIGHT
May 18th, 2009, 7 p.m. - Top Kino
One long night with experimental 22 films, a live performance and Q and As: This is the Experimental Night of VIS Vienna Independent Shorts 2009.
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WENDE FLICKS
May 18th, 2009, 7 p.m. - Top Kino
These images of 20 years ago are branded in our memories: the fall of the Berlin Wall, the symbolic end of the European East-West division, the end of the Cold War. VIS Vienna Independent Shorts is putting a strong emphasis on this whole complex topic, but also seeing the jubilee as an invitation to broaden the context.
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Focus on Russia: Russia is still dangerous, Russia is still loveable
May 15th, 2009, 9 p.m. - Schikaneder; May 18th, 2009, 5 p.m. - Top Kino
The seven, partly prize-winning short films shown in this programme all afford an inside view of social and political activity and situations in Russia; and an approximation to a country that is, even nineteen years after the end of the Cold War, usually present in western media in military or human rights related topics. The individual films’ approaches are very diverse, in the end though, the impression one gets is rather unambiguous: Russia is still dangerous, Russia is still loveable.
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Très chic
May 15th, 12 p.m. - Schikaneder
This year Très Chic, already one of the festival’s regular fixtures, will once again present a colourful potpourri of short films that are not meant to be taken too seriously. The audience decides which film will win the “Prix Très Chic”, awarded for the first time this year. The selection ranges from parody to pathos, from language barriers to sprechgesang, from Bulgaria to Belgium. Obviously all of this has nothing to do with trash, honestly.
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Film Brunch: The Festival Team’s Foster Films
May 17th, 2009, 12.30 a.m. (screening) – brunch: 10.30 a.m. – 4 p.m. - Top Kino
Unfortunately there is never enough room … as the old festival organiser’s saying goes. So this is a selection of "saved" films – each team member has chosen one film to be their "foster film". We hope that with a nice cup of coffee and a fried egg, you will be able to enjoy these films that we just couldn’t get out of our heads.
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Walled In - Films from the Living Room
May 17th, 2009, 5 p.m. - Top Kino
Whether it be pure idleness or an escape from the outside world, unintentional confinement from one’s environment or self-imposed isolation: when the privacy of your own home becomes your preferred sanctuary, the camera sometimes suddenly serves as the most important means of communication. And some day you somehow feel walled in even in your own living room.
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Air Bed Movies
May 17th, 2009, 8 p.m. + 9.30 p.m., May 18th, 2009, 8 p.m. + 9.30 p.m. - Festival Centre at MuseumsQuartier
The screen changes its position – from vertical to horizontal, the pictures are projected perpendicularly – the name of the game is: lie down, relax and (for the first time) vote for your favourite film! Stories about laughing men, crying women, dreams made of sand and impressive fantasy worlds – who needs a holiday with all that?
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Artist-in-Residence: Joanna Polak
Polish artist Joanna Polak follows the invitation by VIS Vienna Independent Shorts to be Artist-in-Residence at the quartier21 of the MuseumsQuartier in Vienna from May 1st to June 30th, 2009.
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Special: Wer Meer sehen will
May 18th, 2009, 12 p.m. - Top Kino
A very special programme at midnight: two films that are sensible of the sea’s collective treasure trove of perception and deal with this topos in an aesthetic and functionalistic manner. Water is given space, the mighty waves can unfold across the entire width of the screen.
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Prize Giving
May 20th, 2009, 8 p.m. - Urania
Five film prizes will be awarded on the festival’s closing night, followed by screenings of the winning films.
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Installation: Russia is still dangerous, Russia is still loveable
May 15th to 20th, 2009 - Schikaneder (display)
The video installation Russia is still dangerous, Russia is still loveable by Gia Rigvava, which also inspired the title of our Russian film programme Focus on Russia, complements the broad spectrum of interdisciplinary approaches to Russia.
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Workshops for filmmakers
kino5, organiser of KinoDynamique, presents two useful workshops by self-made filmmakers for like-minded people.
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