Viennale has again turned Vienna into an international stage for bold, challenging, and artistically rich cinema. The Viennale 2025 commenced with its opening gala at Gartenbaukino. 

Festival director Eva Sangiorgi stated that, for her, cinema today acts not as an antidote to the cruelty of the world, but to its oversimplification, which serves as a form of resistance to narratives that have consistently sought to impose a single perspective. “In recent times, I’ve been reflecting deeply on what cinema signifies in this historical moment, and what role it might assume now. I am sure we can all agree that cultural expression becomes even more vital in times of crisis.” She introduced the newly appointed festival president, Christian Petzold, who shared his satisfaction at taking the helm of the festival. 

Viennale 2025 remains true to its profile. Some of the first announced highlights include:

The festival opened with Miroirs No. 3 by Christian Petzold. His film premiered in Cannes and led off the festival’s official gala. Other notable filmmakers whose work is featured are Kelly Reichardt, Julia Ducournau, Radu Jude, Lynne Ramsay, and Kristen Stewart (with The Chronology of Water). 

Political and socially engaged cinema plays a strong role, with films like Lemohang Moses’s Ancestral Visions of the Future and Jafar Panahi’s Un Simple Accident part of the line-up, touching on themes of resistance, transformation, and societal rupture. 

Viennale 2025 also includes a couple of films with production links to the Balkans or with Balkan themes. Featured films in V’25, listed on the Viennale site as part of the main Features program, are Kaj ti je deklica / Little Trouble Girls, directed by Urška Djukić, a co-production of Slovenia, Italy, Croatia, and Serbia, and Vetre, pričaj sa mnom, directed by Stefan Djordjevic, a co-production of Serbia, Slovenia, and Croatia, and is a 100-minute feature in the V’25 lineup. 

Beyond film premieres, Viennale 2025 includes several monographic programs, offering retrospectives or focused looks at filmmakers such as Angela Summereder, Digna Sinke, Martina Parenti and Massimo D’Anolfi, and cinematographer János Xantus. There is also a Retrospective of Jean Epstein. 

In this edition, around 300 films in six categories will be shown on big screens. The festival venues are those familiar from past editions: cinemas across Vienna’s city centre, combining historic and modern settings, such as the Gartenbaukino, Stadtkino im Künstlerhaus, Urania, Österreichisches Filmmuseum, and Metro Kinokulturhaus. 

Since its founding, Viennale has been Austria’s most significant international film festival, committed to showcasing new and boundary-pushing cinema from around the globe, alongside retrospectives, tributes, and film-historical deep dives. It emphasises political relevance, cinematic craftsmanship, and films that often challenge conventional storytelling.