_{Benedetta by Paul Verhoeven and Topkapi Films}

3 Dutch (Co-)Produced Films at Viennale

Three Dutch (co-)produced films are selected for Viennale's Features programme: Babi Yar. Context, Benedetta* and Detours. Babi Yar. Context by Sergei Loznitsa is produced by Atoms & Void and had its world premiere at Cannes as a special screening, where it won the Special Jury Prize of the L'Oeil d'Or Award for documentary films. On September 29 and 30,1941, Sonderkommando 4a of the Einsatzgruppe C, assisted by two battalions of the Police Regiment South and Ukrainian Auxiliary Police, and without any resistance from the local population, shot dead Kiev 33 771 Jews in the Babi Yar ravine in the north-west of Kiev. Babi Yar. Context reconstructs the historical context of this tragedy through archive footage documenting the German occupation of Ukraine and the subsequent decade. When memory turns into oblivion, when the past overshadows the future, it is the voice of cinema that articulates the truth.

Feature Benedetta by Paul Verhoeven also had its world premiere at Cannes, as part of the Palme d'Or competition. Co-produced by Topkapi Films, in the late 15th century, with plague ravaging the land, Benedetta Carlini joins the convent in Pescia, Tuscany, as a novice. Capable from an early age of performing miracles, Benedetta’s impact on life in the community is immediate and momentous. Sales is handled by Pathé International.

After its world premiere at Venice Film Festival, Detours by Ekaterina Selenkina and co-producer Dutch Mountain Film screens at Viennale. A sprawling meditation on the choreography of bodies in Moscow’s urban landscape, Detours depicts a new way of dealing illicit drugs via the dark web, the layering of physical and virtual realities, as well as a reflection on the poetics and politics of space. Taking place in sleepy neighbourhoods, among the concrete walls of high-rises, behind garages and amidst abandoned railroads, the film alternately follows and loses track of Denis, the “treasureman” who hides stashes of drugs all over the city.

3 Dutch Shorts at Viennale

Three Dutch short productions will screen in Vienna: A Weave of Light, Scylos (both selected for Shorts programme) and Phytography (selected for the Retrospective programme). A Weave of Light by Bram Ruiter shows six people who were asked what they thought there would be on an undeveloped super8 cartridge of unknown origin. The resulting film is a free association based on those conversations preoccupied with perception and being perceived, the infinite, that which does not exist (yet), and the limitations of visualising imagination. The super8 cartridge will remain undeveloped. Earlier this year the film was selected for the Argentinian La Plata International Independent Film Festival – FestiFreak and BIDEODROMO International Experimental Film and Video Festival in Bilbao

Scylos is an experimental documentary, directed by Maaike Anne Stevens and produced by Stevens and Peter Mann. Earlier selections include IFFR and Visions du Réel 2021. Scylos is a meditation on the nature of classical logic, in which contradictory states cannot co-exist. The film is inspired by the life story of a character described in Herodotus’ Histories: the Scythian King Scylos, whose existence was split between his tribe of nomadic warriors and his civilised home in a Greek settler town. This double existence eventually led to his dramatic downfall. This contemplative film is composed from sequences shot in a small desert village on the edge of the Sahara in southeastern Morocco and at the IODP Bremen Core Repository, where thousands of deep-sea mud cores from all over the world are stored, sampled and analysed by scientists, who try to explain cycles of extinction and bloom in the history of the planet. In a mud core the whole of humanity is reduced to a speck of dust, and yet within each particle the cycle of birth, life and death is present.

Phytography is directed and produced by Karel Doing. Earlier, the short screened at Unpredictable Series in London and Lausanne Underground Film and Music Film Festival. Phytography dives into the rich and varied world of plant chemistry. This collection of organic 'objets trouvés' demonstrates how nature generates multiple creative solutions, each one structured intricately. Through the application of a simple chemical process, the selected leaves, petals and stems have imprinted their own images on the film's emulsion. Shapes, colours and rhythms whirl across the screen drawing the viewer into a world beyond language and speech. The film taps into a realm of mutualism and generosity, readily available despite the environmental havoc caused by human greed and overconsumption.

For more information on Vienna International Film Festival, click here.
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*Film is supported by the Netherlands Film Fund