FRESH UP!
Fade Away into the Grey
Johanna Lietz | A, DK, S 2025 | 17‘
Premiere: AUSTRIAN PREMIERE
A 17-minute artistic, essayistic documentary film told on two levels: a minimalist, observational documentary level that maps the Danish artist Else Afelt through the places where she lives and works, her travels and visual motifs, without a narrator’s voice; and an essayistic first-person voice (as Else), which articulates the inner intent of her painting against a backdrop of tranquil sky scenes – thus reflecting the inner tension of her work and its external reception. The film aims to highlight the gap between perception (what others saw in Else) and intention (what Else actually had to say). Through the alternation between objective cartography of places and a poetic, meditative first-person voice, a cinematic space emerges in which the images of the landscape, the city and the painting technique correspond with an inner voice – a brief, dense study of the position of a pioneer who was both a part of and an outsider to the post-war avant-garde.
Monothematic
Eva Holzgreve, Abramo Rizzardo | IT 2026 | 4‘30‘‘
Premiere: AUSTRIAN PREMIERE
As the title suggests, this is about repetition – in this case, repeated wrongdoing. Since at least the 1970s, we have had enough information to know what we are destroying: a functioning ecosystem, our planet. Yet despite all the scientific data and findings, we are not changing our destructive way of living. Dancing with the globe in the film “The Great Dictator”, Charlie Chaplin aptly described National Socialism. We, too, use the globe, but not only that…
Lab Ratz
Fedja Petrović | SLO 2026 | 6‘23‘‘
Premiere: AUSTRIAN PREMIERE
In the short animated film LAB RATZ by Fedja Petrović, created at the Ljubljana High School of Design and Photography, we follow the process of creating medical grade drugs from their conception to them hitting pharmacy shelves but with a slight twist. The film depicts the roles of humans and animals reversed, thus showing the cruelty that still takes place in the laboratories of major medical and cosmetic companies today and asks whether our actions are morally justifiable.
D.R.D.
Florentina Marie Gasser | A 2026 | 3‘53‘‘
Premiere: AUSTRIAN PREMIERE
D.R.D. is an experimental short film created as part of a school project on the topic of date rape drugs (D.R.Ds). Rather than presenting the subject in a documentary style, the film tells the story from the perspective of a victim and focuses on the emotions and consequences that remain after such an experience.
Accompanied by an inner monologue, D.R.D. follows the journey of a young girl from a carefree night out at a party to a moment that changes her life forever. Symbolic imagery, dark color palettes, and a fragmented narrative structure convey fear, loss of control, and the feeling of being trapped within one’s own body. The film does not focus on the assault itself, but rather on the emptiness, uncertainty, and psychological burden that linger afterward.
With this film, I wanted to raise awareness about the dangers of date rape drugs and show that their effects extend far beyond the moment in which they are used. D.R.D. aims to encourage people to take the issue seriously, look out for one another, and pay greater attention to the often invisible consequences faced by survivors.
Ribs – A Visual Poem
Zoe Hammermayer, Killian Krassnitzer | A 2026 | 3‘19‘‘
Premiere: AUSTRIAN PREMIERE
Fear
Paolo Boschian Cuch | IT 2026 | 5‘29‘‘
FEAR is a short film structured in three acts, exploring how fear shapes our relationship with time. Through gesture, repetition, and space, a man moves from the illusion of control through the past, to paralysis in the face of the future, and finally to a fragile presence in the present. The film rejects resolution, suggesting that fear does not disappear, but can be walked with.
Leberkas Connection – Zugzwang
Sophie Bacher | A 2026 | 25‘08‘‘
Premiere: AUSTRIAN PREMIERE
In a not-so-distant future, junk food is banned and veganism has become the new lifestyle. What alcohol once was during Prohibition is now junkfood – saught for, illegal, and dangerous. And as always, organized crime seizes the opportunity, igniting a brutal power struggle in the criminal underworld. This is part two of the gripping story of shady dealings in illegal junk food.