The Viennese artist Christoph Schwarz convinced the jury of the Austria Competition with his film essay “The best city is no city at all”. The Jury Prize went to Raphaela Schmid's tragicomic drama “Fish Like Us”. The collective Total Refusal received an honourable mention for the game entry “How to Disappear”.

The 15-minute work “The best city is no city at all” deals with the Seestadt Aspern as the capital‘s largest expansion area from several perspectives. Schwarz receives 3,000 euros plus 2,000 euros as a post-production voucher and was also nominated as a candidate for the European Film Prize.

The Jury Prize, which is awarded in the Austrian Competition for promising newcomers, went to the young Upper Austrian Raphaela Schmid for her fiction film „Fish Like Us”, which was shot in analog and directed in a sophisticated style. The prize is endowed with 2,000 euros plus 1,000 euros post-production voucher.

A Special Mention went to Robin Klengel, Leonhard Müllner and Michael Stumpf (Total Refusal), who in “How to Disappear” philosophise about desertion as participants in the computer game Battlefield V. The collective had also provided the trailer for this year‘s festival edition.

In the Austrian Competition 23 films were screened, which were selected from more than 300 submitted works. The jury consisted of Biennale advisor Enrico Vannucci (IT), former prize winner Christiana Perschon (AT) and the Program Director of the Vancouver IFF, Curtis Woloschuk (CA).

Here you can find the jury decisions of the Austrian Competition 2020 in detail. We would like to thank the award donors VdFS Verwertungsgesellschaft der Filmschaffenden, VAM Verwertungsgesellschaft für audiovisuelle Medien, Blautöne & viennaFX.

News 2.6.2020