20 JAHRE SCHULE FÜR UNABHÄNGIGEN FILM
Die einen wollen Film lernen, die anderen teilen ihre zutiefst persönliche Sicht auf das Medium. Seit 2006 treffen sie an der von Künstler*innen geführten Schule für unabhängigen Film aufeinander.
Im Rahmen des Jubiläums zeigt die Schule gemeinsam mit dem Österreichischen Filmmuseum im November vier kuratierte Filmprogramme. Erstmals werden Filmarbeiten von ehemaligen Lehrenden und Studierenden der vergangenen zwanzig Jahre in direkter Konversation präsentiert. Die Programme erlauben einen vielschichtigen Einblick in die kontinuierlichen, oft generationsübergreifenden Auseinandersetzungen an der Schule mit dem Medium Film: Vieles baut bewusst aufeinander auf, manches begegnet sich zufällig. Einige Aufeinandertreffen ergeben Sinn, manches trifft sich im Widerspruch.
SAVE THE DATE
20. und 21. November 2025 im Österreichischen Filmmusem
See full programme HERE
20 Jahre Trailer mit Filmbeiträgen von:
Manuel Götz, Alina Tretinjak, Magdalena Pfeifer, Olga Kosanovic, Benjamin Hassmann, Viki Kühn, Margarete Rabow, Antoinette Zwirchmayr, Valentin Spirik, Viktor Schaider, Rosa John, W.Andreas Scherlofsky, Nadine Taschler, Marie-Therese Jakoubek, Max Imre, Margit Thieme, Philipp Fleischmann, Viktoria Schmid, Sophie Lux, Pinky, Cana Bilir-Meier, Christian Kurz, Manfred Schwaba, Markus Maicher, Christina Lammer, Barbara Diem, Julia Dossi, Johannes Schrems, Barbara Schwertführer, Jascha Novak, Julia Benczak, Noel Dinse, Isabella Brunäcker, Theo Maier, Marlene Göntgen, Noyan Tuna, Mario Sefelin, Friedl vom Gröller, Tobias Hollinetz, Claudia La, Philipp Fleischmann, Antonia de la Luz Kasik, Eva Claus, Noyan Tuna, Magdalena Pfeifer, Hugo Max, Nadine Fohrafellner, Gudrun Führlinger, Simon Dallaserra, Teona Galgotiu, Natalia del Mar Kasik, Daniel Owusu, Max Koller, Isabella Fellinger, Cathleen Kayser, Carlotta Wachotsch, Philipp Rirsch, Wilma Calisir, Daniela Gutmann, Seraina Scherini, Martina Mina, Markus Maicher, Emil Tomasev, Mika Härte (Sattler), Melisande Seebald, Andrea Pollach, Stuti Bansal und Anna Häupl, Julian Giacomuzzi, Caroline Rumley, Olga Kosanovic, Andrea Habith und Rita Nettelstad
WHERE WHAT IS WILLED MUST BE
Some come wanting to learn film; others wish to share their deeply personal view of the medium. Since 2006, they have met at the artist-run School for Independent Film. Each year, we design new programs on the art and technique of film — inspired by Dante’s phrase: “Where what is willed must be.”
A group of fifteen curious minds encounters fifteen guest artists, continuously accompanied by the team of the film school. Instead of industrial standards, the focus lies on the search for individual, free, and self-determined forms of expression. Film as an analogue, tactile, conceptual, and poetic practice.
In October 2025, the 20th annual program begins — which we took as an occasion to celebrate. But what exactly are we celebrating?
When institutions celebrate birthdays, it often feels a bit silly. Yet, like many others, we welcome the opportunity to pause for a moment and reflect. In the case of the School for Independent Film, it seems especially meaningful to use this anniversary to briefly step out of our usual rhythm and shift focus — toward a public sphere, toward visibility, toward a kind of overview that has not yet existed in this form.
Because, in truth, we usually operate in the opposite way: in the small, the hidden, the withdrawn. But what takes place within the school’s rooms year after year has nothing to do with calm or harmonious balance — don’t worry. On the contrary: the film school seeks to offer a framework where discovery, development, euphoria, as well as wrong turns and disappointment can truly be experienced. That this unleashes a great deal of energy, friction, and emotion among fifteen participants each year goes without saying.
The medium itself — analogue film, whether Super 8, 16 mm, or 35 mm — is one of the most essential and challenging teachers. You must truly work for your images. Much like in sculpture, several steps are required before the longed-for becomes visible: exposing, developing, printing, projecting. Much can happen along the way — surprisingly unexpected things, controlled deviations, painful collapse into nothingness. In any case, it takes time, step by step. In today’s understanding of constant and instant accessibility, exploitation, and gratification of moving images, this is almost a rebellious act in itself.
Working on images goes hand in hand with working on oneself.Analogue film requires an analogue space.
In my role as artistic director, I try to create, over the course of eight months, a place where we can turn away from all the demands of society and the art-and-film world and instead devote ourselves entirely to personal development and the often arduous and tormenting process of artistic creation. A small, temporary luxury — but one that seems absolutely necessary to me. That the school has managed, for two decades now, to dance around the ever-louder calls for visibility, marketability, and publicity — and to actually keep a protected space open for individual development, and to do so with the most minimal budget — is, to me, something profoundly worth celebrating.
The success of numerous graduates would be another reason.
And when I speak of success, I always mean, first and foremost, artistic success — when one manages to bring one’s own concerns into a cinematic form one is personally satisfied with. Public success, if it comes at all, comes only afterward — and remains a questionable measure.
That many graduates, through their work in experimental, narrative, documentary, or installation film, now decisively shape Austria’s film and art landscape is, of course, more than pleasing. It is wonderful to see how differently filmmakers interpret and realize their experiences at the school. We are far from claiming credit, yet it seems permissible, within the framework of the anniversary, to celebrate the school’s — sometimes greater, sometimes smaller — contribution to so many impressive developments.
Perhaps what we want to celebrate after twenty years is something even more abstract: Art requires encounter and exchange. 260 people have attended the school’s programs.
Over 320 artists have shared their perspective on the medium. The following film programs at the Austrian Film Museum bring together, for the first time, former teachers and students in curated screenings. They are, of course, only an excerpt — one that could look quite different. Not a best-of, simply one version. In any case, they offer insight into the intergenerational discussions that have evolved at the school over the years. Much of it builds consciously upon one another; some things meet by chance. Some encounters make sense, others meet in contradiction. In every case, it is about continuing the reflection on what film is and what film can be.
The whole thing — like attending the school itself — should not only be a cinematographic experience but above all a shared one: stimulating, motivating, challenging, open. A small parcours through twenty years of the School for Independent Film.
Philipp Fleischmann
Artistic Director
November 2025