Rebel Yeah – Now and Then!

In previous editions, we have selected film initiatives or associations whose work we showcase through curated film programmes. These included evenings featuring experimental 16mm works self-developed and produced by Distruktur and Labor Berlin (2022), an evening dedicated to the pioneering work of Kino Armata in Pristina, Kosovo (2023), and a screening of feminist 16mm films from Asta Nielsen Film Archive in Frankfurt am Main (2024).

We are continuing this thread with sixpackfilm from Vienna, a distributor of artist films. Together with managing director Dietmar Schwärzler, we have curated four programmes to showcase their work as a film distributor and archive. In doing so, we are shining a spotlight on an aspect of international film and festival work that is usually behind the scenes and therefore not visible or accessible to the general public. sixpackfilm was founded in 1990 as a non-profit organisation. The primary aim of their work is to raise public awareness of Austrian artistic film and video production. This is achieved through distribution, rental, the conception and organisation of events both in Austria and abroad and their label INDEX edition. Following their festival run, all works enter the distribution catalogue, which now comprises more than 2,500 titles. The catalogue features historical classics of the Austrian avantgarde – such as VALIE EXPORT, Mara Mattuschka, Peter Weibel, Maria Lassnig, Ashley Hans Sheirl, Ursula Pürrer or Kurt Kren – alongside more recent names such as Johann Lurf, Martha Mechow, Kurdwin Ayub, Jan Soldat, Selma Doborac or Lukas Marxt.

The full programme comprises four parts, which will be presented in the presence of Dietmar Schwärzler and additional filmmakers: on 17 September, a loop of short films exploring the tension between public and private spheres, screened at Milieu Kino located in Rabet park, on 18 September, two short film programmes – one historical, focusing on the Austrian avant-garde, and one featuring contemporary works – at Luru Kino; and finally, on 19 September, also at Luru Kino, a programme of films by Viktoria Schmid in her presence.

Outside in the Cinema: Short films from the sixpackfilm archive

VALIE EXPORT: Touch Cinema, AT 1968, 2 min.
Ashley Hans Scheirl, Ursula Pürrer: A Rubber Dinghy and Oysters, AT 1985, 5 min.
Eve Heller: Astor Place, US 1997, 10 min.
Phil Solomon: CROSSROAD, US 2005, 5 min.
Jannis Lenz: Zero-G, AT 2016, 9 min.

Starting from the relocation of the cinema into public space, a programme of short films featuring works from the collection of the Viennese film distributor sixpackfilm explores the boundaries between public and private, visible and concealed. Valie Export’s TOUCH CINEMA ironically and provocatively makes “tangible” what voyeurs seek to touch through watching. In a public performance, Export straps a box – a miniature cinema auditorium, open at the front and back – to her bare breasts. Passers-by are invited to visit the cinema... In ASTOR PLACE by Eve Heller, we look through a shop window mirrored on the outside onto the square of the same name in New York City. Passers-by walk past. Unaware that they are being watched, they look into the camera before moving onsoon. An arrangement of asymmetrical gazes that gains in complexity on the big screen. Ursula Pürrer and Ashley Hans Scheierl’s A RUBBER DINGHY AND OYSTERS is queer DIY cinema: punk women on the New York subway, home-movie snippets and the sexually surreal. The programme is shown as a loop.

17 September, 5 pm
Milieu Kino am Rabet
Free admission