The Viennale or Vienna International Film Festival is an annual film festival which takes place every October/November since 1960. This year’s Viennale time is from October 22nd to November 4th.


2009 the festivals pays tribute to the actress Tilda Swinton who is well known through movies like “The Beach”, “Vanilla Sky” and “Burn After Reading”. The actress has already arrived in Vienna to present new projects and to be part of a public discussion session. Also Cynthia Beatt, director of Swinton’s current project “The Invisible Frame” will be attending the discussion.

Every year the Viennale features a lot of new movies from all over the world, Austrian and international film premieres, documentations, short films and also experimental films. There is also a retrospective which featuring movies with Tilda Swinton.

Besides the movies which are shown in several cinemas in Vienna there is also a frame program with concerts, performances and discussion sessions featuring film makers and actors/actresses.

The festival also includes the awarding of films with the Fipresci Price by international film critics, the Vienna Film Award and the readers award of the well known Austrian newspaper “Der Standard”.

The Viennale might be the best known film festival taking place in Austria but there are more like the Diagonale at Graz (a film festival only for Austrian films), the Vienna Independet Shorts (a short film festival) or Crossing Europe (an international film festival) which takes place every year at Linz. There are also many smaller film festivals in Austria.

Austria really is a film nation and maybe, if you love films, you should come to Austria and visit one (or more) of our great film festivals for example the Diagonale 2010 which will take place from March 16th to March 21st next year or next year’s Crossing Europe festival which will take place from April 20th to April 25th. Of course there will also be the Viennale also next year in October. For more information visit the official websites of the Viennale: www.viennale.at, the Diagonale: www.diagonale.at or the Crossing Europe Film Festival: www.crossingeurope.at!