20TH edition NOVEMBER 24 TO DECEMBER 2, 2023
20th edition
November 24 to December 2, 2023
Marie Kreutzer was born in Graz, Austria, in 1977. After graduating from the AHS Modellschule, she studied screenwriting and dramaturgy at the Film Academy Vienna. After graduating, she worked as a script supervisor and made several award-winning short films. Her first feature, The Fatherless (2011), was shown at and won awards from numerous festivals, including the Berlin International Film Festival. It was followed by Gruber Is Leaving (2015), We Used to Be Cool (2016), the television film Die Notlüge (2017), and the multi-award-winning The Ground Beneath My Feet (2019), which was selected for the competition at the Berlinale and received excellent reviews worldwide.
Christmas, 1877. Empress Elisabeth of Austriaâknown as âSissiââcelebrates her fortieth birthday. As the wife of Emperor Franz Joseph I, she is not allowed to express herself and must remain the young and beautiful empressâforever. To meet these expectations, she follows a strict regime of fasting, exercise and hairstyling, and endures daily measurements of her waistline. Suffocated by convention and hungry for knowledge and life, Elisabeth increasingly rebels against the image she is pressured to uphold.
Director : Marie Kreutzer
Producer : Alexander Glehr, Johanna Scherz
Screenwriter : Marie Kreutzer
Cinematographer : Judith Kaufmann
Production Designer : Martin Reiter
Editor : Ulrike Kofler
Sound : Nicolas Leroy, Angelo Dos Santos, Alain Goniva, Carlo Thoss
Music
Production Company : Film AG
International Sales : MK2 Films