Architektur.Film.Sommer: Permanent Transition

Location: courtyard of the Architekturzentrum Wien in the MuseumsQuartier Wien

Alternative bad-weather location: Az W Podium

The films shown on this evening are devoted to the meaning of borders, which may have already been abolished, as in “Granica”, or which are fluid, as in the film “Europe Endless”, which tells about being stranded in Malta and the hope of getting further. This sense of waiting on the threshold is also expressed in the short film “Behördengang”, and even more strongly in “Flotel Europa”, which tells about the life in a Danish container ship of the director, who fled from former Yugoslavia.

Guests: Gunther Blauensteiner

GRANICA

AT 2009, 6 mins, original version
Dir.: Eni Brandner
Granica / Grenze / Border describes the separating line between two religions and two cultures – between areas with a Serbian majority and those with a majority of Croatian residents. Twelve years after the end of the conflict about the “Republic of Serbian Krajina” the traces of the confrontation are still apparent. The decayed, destroyed buildings are unwanted monuments against forgetting, which in some cases stand directly beside mine fields or in the middle of the city, awaiting their residents. But the former residents or their descendants are returning only very slowly to the areas economically devastated by the Yugoslav war. There are still some villages that are half deserted and in the hinterland, far from the tourist centres, sparsely inhabited cities, which, twelve years later, have still not recovered from the damage they suffered in the war.
Trailer: https://vimeo.com/13543414

EUROPE ENDLESS

AT/MT 2015, 30 mins, original version
Dir: Gunther Blauensteiner, Valentin Langer, Penelope Reindl
“Europe Endless” is a 30 minute documentary about migrants trying to get to mainland Europe by boat. The Island of Malta is one of the most densely populated nations in the world and is situated right in the path of refugees desperately trying to reach Europe. Many survivors are stranded on the small island stuck in detention and neglected by most people. “Europe Endless” does not try to paint a broad picture of the catastrophe. It deals with the individual horrors of loneliness and neglect.
Trailer: https://vimeo.com/102111073

BEHÖRDENGANG

AT 2012, 5 mins, no dialogue
Dir: Dawid Liftinger
Director Dawid Liftinger presents a portrait of the Neues Rathaus (City Hall) in Linz and of the municipal administration itself. A building which, given its function, should actually make an open and inviting impression, seems closed and hostile. This video work relates the complex and often obscure “municipal administration system” to the building’s equally complicated directional system and its almost labyrinthine architecture.
Trailer: https://vimeo.com/46363054

FLOTEL EUROPA

DK/RS 2015, 70 mins, original with English subtitles
Dir.: Vladimir Tomic
Flotel Europa – a floating giant in the port of Copenhagen. At the beginning of the 1990s director Vladimir Tomic fled to Denmark from the war in Sarajevo together with his mother and his older brother. Upon arriving there the family lived in a container ship , which provided temporary accommodation for about one thousand refugees from former Yugoslavia who, despite the difficult circumstances, mastered their daily lives there and celebrated special occasions. The family sent video messages to the father in the old country. The film is based on a montage of this video material and looks back at the life of a teenager between windowless cabins, communal kitchens and a TV room with news from the war zones and excursions to “dry land”.
Trailer: https://vimeo.com/117721025

Thanks to:

Embassy of Denmark in Austria