Curating the film series "Carte blanche vs brown thoughts" at Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival.

Austrian films have been dealing with "brown thoughts" for many years, whereas "brown" does not have much in common with the act of "thinking". In a long sequence in the film "Autumn 95/Fall 95" we can get a notion of what kind of people were attracted by events with Jörg Haider in 1995, and what they had to say. Today we can see many other people around Haider, who had not yet come to the forefront in 1995.
"Zero Crossing" is situated on the other side of the spectrum of opinions; in equally long sequences, it is banning the instantaneous disgust in March 2000 on film. The state of shock of the interviewees then has today – two years after the Freedom Party has entered the Austrian government – given place to a common paralysis. The opponent has, in the meanwhile, become powerful: in Austria, we were first with a right wing government. Now, there is not only Haider, but there are also Berlusconi and Bush. Those people are going to stay with us for a while because difficult times are heydeys for bad politicians. On the other hand, difficult times are also heydeys for good films – and nine of those can be seen at Clermont-Ferrand. They are entirely different films, but what they stand against is always the same.
Many thanks to Amour Fou Filmproduktion, Meter, Navigator Film, Sixpack Film, "Die Kunst der Stunde ist Widerstand" and Schnittpunktfilm.
Virgil Widrich

Films shown: "Günter 1939 (Heil Hitler)" (Johannes Rosenberger), "Herbst 95" (Alexander Binder, Michael Gartner, Elke Groen, Rainer Frimmel, Rainer Obrist), "5 Filme gegen Schwarz-Blau: Schaukel" (Thomas Horvath), "Dar-el-Beida" (Tim Sharp), "Passagen" (Lisl Ponger), "Heimkehr. Wien 1941/1996." (Caroline Weihs, Michael Domes), "Zero Crossing. Conversations in Vienna" (Johannes Holzhausen), "Marriage Blanc" (Concept Gustav Deutsch, realization Gustav Deutsch and Mostafa Tabbou), "Pinocchio" (Martin Reinhart)