The festival of Austrian film, the Diagonale, opened on Wednesday evening in the Helmut-List-Halle in Graz with the awarding of the Great Diagonale Acting Prize to Hilde Dalik. There was also the Austrian premiere of Markus Schleinzer’s “Rose”. The director duo Claudia Slanar and Dominik Kamalzadeh – clear-sighted and wide-awake as always in their speech – pleaded, among other things, for spaces without immediate reactions such as likes and against disruptions caused by banal noise.
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“One of the great challenges of our time is, as we all know, getting attention without having to use a megaphone,” said the two directors, opening this year’s film festival. As usual, this happened with a politically alert statement. They were referring to the US writer George Saunders, who in his story “The Braindead Megaphone” from 2007 – “translated unpleasantly, but not inaccurately into German: the megaphone of complete idiots” – describes volume and impudence as an enforcement mechanism in a discussion: A not particularly intelligent party guest with a megaphone puts a previously balanced society in distress. Over time, even the sensible people’s conversations only revolve around him. The other guests initially try to adhere to the rules of social decency – they contradict, correct, react, explain, and get annoyed. The problem is not just the megaphone, but also how we deal with it. Because whoever has the megaphone also has a structural advantage – even if they have nothing but nonsense to say, according to the directors.
Indirectly affected by the Iran war
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“We are sure: you have already noticed some parallels to our present – please add details such as politicians’ names as you wish,” said the two festival directors and pointed out the multiple global crises. For example, the war in Iran, in which the crucial thing, the liberation of a country from a dictatorship that is determined to do anything, is increasingly pushed into the background. “The Diagonale is also indirectly affected: Our jury member Faraz Fesharaki cannot currently leave Iran, as can Massoud Bakhshi (“All my Sisters”), who is represented in the competition as a director. Our thoughts are with them, we very much hope that they are both doing well.”
So what can a festival say? A space in which attention is not organized by volume, in which thoughtfulness does not force an immediate reaction. It’s not the megaphone that decides, but the images. A festival is not an arena for likes, but an open place for encounters, debate, criticism – yes, perhaps even helplessness. But the two directors advocated a productive perplexity that should arouse curiosity, raise questions and create a desire for friction. “A festival is a space that – one can easily say this in times of falling cultural budgets and the dynamics of outrage such as those recently surrounding the Berlinale – is no longer so self-evident. A film culture that thrives on diversity. Anyone who saves on financing ultimately saves on diversity.”
“Don’t just abolish ORF taxes like that”
It is important to develop alternative financing models and to tie streaming platforms more closely to the financing of national film cultures. It’s not just about the creation, it’s also about the places where they can be seen – cinemas, film festivals. “As an elementary addition for the future cultural diversity of Styria, we can also add: ORF fees that flow into cultural budgets must not simply be abolished,” the duo made a clear demand to the large number of federal and state politicians in the audience. Because: “For the duration of a film, we are allowed to do something that has become surprisingly rare in everyday life: we are allowed to put our opinions aside for a moment and let other people’s imaginations take over,” said the two festival directors.
The Diagonale is showing 149 productions in several tracks and some specials until Monday (March 23rd). A festival is not just a program, but also a gathering of bodies. This brings us to essential things – bodies are also controlled and exploited, not only through patriarchal structures, but also through capitalist logics – whereby, according to theorist Silvia Federici, a body is not only an object of control, but also a place of resistance. This leads to the opening film: The body of the main character (Sandra Hülser) in “Rose” by Markus Schleinzer is one full of ambiguities. “Rose” is a film about a woman who allows herself the freedom to become someone else. Truth and role, protection and self-assertion, deception and emancipation stand side by side here without immediately dissolving.
“Be able to irritate and be touched”
“Acting as if you were already free” is how anthropologist David Graeber describes a revolutionary gesture. The duo said it was not as a victim of the circumstances, but rather as an attempt to undermine these circumstances on a small scale. In any case, we want “a diagonal 26 with many discoveries – on the screen and beyond, when you look closely, when you listen attentively, in images and sounds that irritate you and by which you can be touched,” say Slanar and Kamalzadeh.
Before the Grand Diagonal Acting Prize, designed by Anita Leisz, was presented, the film festival set an example for maintaining the ORF state cultural levy with a spot on the screen: “Cultureland Styria. Don’t break our green hearts.” Director Alexandra Makarová then gave her “hymn of praise to the unmistakable Hilde Dalik”, who never pushes herself into the foreground, who does not stand on stage to be seen, but to be seen. “Hilde has fire, energy, love, anger, courage. She dances like Ginger Rogers and always lends her voice to the right side,” says Makarová.
“What was my performance?”
The winner, Hilde Dalik, admitted that the Diagonale was her favorite festival, “and not just since today.” “When Dominik Kamalzadeh called me, the first thing that came to mind was an Austrian philosopher who asked, ‘What was my performance?'” Dalik then described with his usual enthusiasm what actresses had to face: Her first TV role was that of a furniture designer who appeared in lace underwear for customers – “that was the condition for the role. In any case, Austrian film is now in its heyday and has a lot of films at the Berlinale, “but unfortunately it’s not possible “The solution is nothing complicated, such as a fair contribution in the form of a streaming tax. If the ORF state tax is actually abolished in 2027, “we can actually say goodbye to a large part of our art, which radiates far beyond the country. If we don’t have that anymore, where was our performance?” asked Dalik.
In the audience this year for the second time was Andreas Babler in his role as SPÖ Vice Chancellor with the cultural agenda, as well as ÖVP State Councilor for Culture Karlheinz Kornhäusl, KPÖ Mayor Elke Kahr as well as the former Vice Chancellor and responsible for culture in the federal government, Green MP Werner Kogler, as well as the former Styrian ÖVP state governors Waltraud Klasnic and Hermann Schützenhöfer and Christopher Drexler.
(SERVICE – Diagonale Film Festival from March 18th to 23rd, information and tickets at www.diagonale.at)
(What: APA)