FOCUS ON: Borjana Ventzislavova

For the first time, sixpackfilm, Breitenseer Lichtspiele and Filmmuseum are joining forces to present the two programme series IN PERSON and FOCUS ON, showcasing the work of Austrian-Bulgarian film artist Borjana Ventzislavova, whose works have been featured in numerous exhibitions and media art and film festivals worldwide, including Belvedere 21, MAK, the National Gallery in Sofia, Kunstforum Wien, ICA London, transmediale Berlin and IDFA. 
In her works, Ventzislavova consistently addresses current socio-political issues, which she negotiates through docu-fictional narratives. The exploration of social identity, marginalisation, intercultural participation and power structures is a central theme in her short films. By interweaving documentary footage, staged scenes, voiceovers and texts, she examines the relationship between imagination and real practices, thereby questioning the construction of social realities.
The second focus of the show is the Vienna premiere of Ventzislavova's feature film debut New News from Another Home from 2024, a homage to Chantal Akerman's outstanding film essay News from Home from 1976/77. Almost fifty years after Akerman read letters sent to her by her mother during her first stay in the foreign city against footage of New York cityscapes, Ventzislavova takes up the motifs in a personal journey through the revered work and links them to her own family history. (Lotte Schreiber)

Mittwoch, 5.11.2025 // 18:00
News From Home
Chantal Akerman
FR 1977 B: Chantal Akerman K: Babette Mangolte S: Francine Sandberg. 16mm, col, 88 min. English

In the 1970s and early 1980s, no genre captured the spirit and desires of cinephile audiences as accurately as road movies. The motto was: drive, drive, drive! And in most cases, that meant across America. In Chantal Akerman's work, alongside the intoxication and elegance of cinematic driving, the fractures in this transatlantic desire are also palpable. Although she shoots ‘over there,’ immersing herself in the city of New York as she drives, she does so from a distance, in images full of loneliness and strangeness. On the soundtrack, above the sharp background noise of the city, the filmmaker reads ‘news from home’: letters from her mother in Brussels. In the dazzling contrast between the home conveyed in this way and the visible foreignness, the utopian road of cinema becomes a dialectical detour. (Alexander Horwath)

Wednesday, 5.11.2025 // 20:30
SHORTFILMPROGRAM Borjana Ventzislavova
• Migration Standards, A 2011, 5 min (dt. m. engl. UT)
• It isn't healthy (Es fehlt ihm die Gesundheit), A 2013, 13 min (dt. m. engl. UT)
• And the sky clears up (MAGIC RESISTANCE), A 2018, 23 min (dt. m. engl. UT)
• Real Games (Gesellschaftsspiele), AT/BG 2020, 16 min (bulg. m. engl. UT)
• We The Nature, A 2021, Farbe, 27 min, (eOF)

Rituals and role-playing open up spaces for self-empowerment – when children address migration policy demands to the camera (Migration Standards), employees of the Bulgarian cultural institute Wittgenstein quote (It isn't healithy), women perform enigmatic ritual acts (And the sky clears up) or distinguished ladies and gentlemen indulge in popular children's games (Real Games). Ventzislavova even gives nature a voice, condensing text and image into an attack on ignorance and capitalist exploitation (We The Nature). (Lotte Schreiber)

Thursday, 6.11.2025 // 18:00 (Vienna Premiere)
New News from Another Home
Borjana Ventzislavova
AT/BG 2024, B: Borjana Ventzislavova K: Lauretta Prevost, S: Borjana Ventzislavova. DCP col, 87 min, bulg. OV. engl. subt.

Borjana Ventzislavova's New News From Another Home is like a doppelgänger narrative to Chantal Akermann's iconic 1977 film. News From Home is part of the collective visual memory, and so Ventzislavova's reenactment inevitably becomes a comparative study along intertwined timelines. In addition to the mother-daughter relationship, the economic and social changes that have left their mark on the topography are also reflected: the capitalisation of public space, the ubiquity of digital technology, traffic chaos.
Unlike the one-sided, stagnant correspondence in the reference film, the emails between mother and daughter reveal a lively exchange. The fragments sketch a multigenerational story between the Iron Curtain, emigration and the post-reunification years. (Esther Buss)