The Vienna International Film Festival, or Viennale, is a film festival taking place every October since 1960 in Vienna, Austria. The average number of visitors is about 75,000. Traditional cinema venues are Gartenbaukino, Urania, Metro-Kino, Filmmuseum and Stadtkino. At the end of the festival, the Vienna Film Prize is awarded.
The festival features a collection of new films from all over the world, as well as national and international premieres.
Apart from new feature films in various film genres the festival focuses on documentary films, short films, experimental films and crossover productions.
Together with the Austrian Film Museum a historical retrospective is organized every year, as well as special programs, tributes and homages to international institutions and individuals.
During the festival the Fipresci Prize is awarded by international film critics, and another prize is awarded by the readers of the Austrian newspaper Der Standard.
The program of the festival includes galas, special events and celebrations, as well as discussions and meetings between international guests and local visitors.
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“All the terrors of the French Republic, which held Austria in awe, were unable to command her diplomacy. But Napoleon sent to Vienna M. de Narbonne, one of the old noblesse, with the morals, manners, and name of that interest, saying, that it was indispensable to send to the old aristocracy of Europe men of the same connection, which, in fact, constitutes a sort of free- masonry. M. de Narbonne, in less than a fortnight, penetrated all the secrets of the imperial cabinet.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Television does not dominate or insist, as movies do. It is not sensational, but taken for granted. Insistence would destroy it, for its message is so dire that it relies on being the background drone that counters silence. For most of us, it is something turned on and off as we would the light. It is a service, not a luxury or a thing of choice.”
—David Thomson, U.S. film historian. America in the Dark: The Impact of Hollywood Films on American Culture, ch. 8, William Morrow (1977)
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—Laurence Stallings (1894–1968)