> Festival NEW YORK PRESENTS
> Three Oscar Nominations for Austria
> Olga Neuwirth receives Grand Austrian State Prize
> Diagonale Festival of Austrian Film
> ORF TVthek
> Mikveh Exhibition at the Jewish Museum Hohenems
FESTIVAL NEW YORK PRESENTS
Feburuary 19-27, 2010
From the visionary DJ-Act to the established legend guitarist. The Festival at Festspielhaus St. Pölten in Lower Austria presents the width of the New Yorker Cultural Scene.
Amongst other highlights:
Bill Frisell is among the world’s best guitarists. He coaxes jazz as well as country, folk, blues or rock’n’roll from his electric guitar, enters electronic territory and creates epic sounds capes.
Iva Bittová's extravagant mélange of Czech folk, avant-garde, jazz and rock encounters guitarist Bill Frisell’s multi-faceted American music.
Aszure Barton is the great new hope of New York’s choreographers and will present her dancers as individual characters. She allows them to reveal their voices, peculiarities, wishes, hopes, fears and vulnerabilities.
DJ Spooky, spin doctor und VJ-artist, who will take us on a journey to the eternal ice. He combines the impressive images of the Antarctic with a fascinating, cool "sound track".
The John Jasperse Company will perform a poetical, impressively individual portrait of three dancers who have known each other for a long time but have gone their separate ways.
Festspielhaus St. Pölten / www.festspielhaus.at
Austrian Oscar Triple?
Director Michael Haneke, cinematographer Christian Berger, and actor Christoph Waltz nominated for the 82nd Academy Awards
It has been a great time for the Austrian film. For the third time in a row – after Stefan Ruzowitzky’s The Counterfeiters in 2008 and Götz Spielmann’s Revanche in 2009 – a movie directed by an Austrian has been nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign Film. After winning the Palm d’Or at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon also succeed at the European Film Awards 2009, receiving awards for Best Film, Best Director, and Best Screenwriter. The movie also received the Best Foreign Language Film award at the 2010 Golden Globes.
Cinematographer Christian Berger received a nomination for his contribution to The White Ribbon as well, which can be considered an outstanding achievement.
Christoph Waltz’s portrayal of Hans Landa, the primary antagonist in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds has won the actor critical acclaim and made him the laureate of the Best Actor Award of the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, as well as the 2010 Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor and the Screen Actors Guild Award in the same category.
This year's Academy Awards take place on March 7, 2010.
- (c) Priska Ketterer
Composer Olga Neuwirth receives Grand Austrian State Prize
In 2010, composer Olga Neuwirth is to receive the Grand Austrian State Prize, the highest artistic honor granted by the Republic of Austria. The offical ceremony will take place on April 8, 2010.
Olga Neuwirth, born 1968 in Graz, is one of the country’s most successful female composers. She studied composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienn and later on at the Conservatory of Music and at the Art College in San Francisco.
Since starting off her career at the Salzburg Festival in 1998 by being introduced in the series “Next Generation”, she has been receiving numerous awards for her music, for example the 2009 South Bank Show Award for her opera Lost Highway.
Olga Neuwirth also works as a film and performance artist.
The Grand State Prize is granted by the Republic of Austria on a yearly basis to honor outstanding achievements in the area of either literature, music, fine arts, or architecture. It was initiated in 1950. Olga Neuwirth is the tenth women to receive it.
- Diagonale Graz © Diagonale | Emanuel Nitsch
Diagonale Festival of Austrian Film
Graz, March 16-21, 2010
Diagonale is one of the most important platforms for the presentation and discussion of Austrian filmmaking today. This festival of Austrian film has been taking place in Graz every spring since 1998, and has established itself as a popular meeting place for both the film industry and the public. Diagonale’s diverse program offers festivalgoers a unique opportunity to experience Austrian cinema, explore current trends, and rediscover gems of filmmaking.
Diagonale’s program presents outstanding Austrian feature and documentary films as well as the country’s best short, animated, and experimental films and videos. Highlights in 2010 include a tribute to the independent documentary filmmaker Peter Schreiner. In cooperation with the Austrian Film Museum, this year’s international contribution will be German director Romuald Karmakar.
www.diagonale.at
ORF-TVthek: Austrian TV channel now available online internationally
On November 16, 2009, the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF) started its TVthek on the Web.
Current news, parliament discussions, and sport events are broadcast in real time via live streaming. Some 70 TV shows are available online on demand for free and worldwide. As far as international access is concerned, only very few legal restrictions apply. About one third of ORF’s programs are available on demand, including news, documentaries, sports, and cultural and regional interest shows.
The new TVthek allows Austrian expatriates as well as anyone else interested in current Austrian political, economic, and cultural affairs to get the latest information from an Austrian perspective.
http://tvthek.orf.at
- (c) Janice Rubin
Quite Clean at the Jewish Museum Hohenems
The Jewish Museum Hohenems in cooperation with the Jewish Museums in Frankfurt/Main (GER), Fürth (GER) and Vienna (AUT) presents its new exhibition Ganz rein (Quite Clean) from March 9 to October 3, 2010. The exhibition comprises photographies of Mikvehs, Jewish ritual baths, by Peter Seidel and the Mikvehs Project with photographies by Janice Rubin and texts by Leah Lax.
Austria’s oldest mikveh is preserved in Hohenems. On the occasion of its restauration, the Jewish Museum Hohenems gives an insight into aspects of Jewish life that are often neglected: love and sexuality, gender roles and marriage in the contexts of religious traditions and a secularized present.
The opening reception takes places on Sunday, March 7, at 11 AM. On Tuesday, March 9, Janice Rubin and Houston-based Leah Lux will be in conversation (in English) about Jewish women and the mikveh in today’s world.
The new internet radio channel Mikwe, www.radiomikwe.at, will be launched with the opening of the exhibition.
www.jm-hohenems.at
