Jasmin Hagendorfer

While searching for Nazi documents in an Austrian farmhouse, a team of experts uncovers a hidden secret buried in its bowels. American expatriate Gunner S. Holbrook becomes obsessed with solving the mystery, and as his sanity wanes, he must confront an insatiable evil.

Conducting a series of experiments in his makeshift home-lab, a skeptic IT worker tries to cure his harrowing hearing impairment. But where will his research lead him? "Masking Threshold" combines a chamber play, a scientific procedural, an unpacking video, and a DIY YouTube channel while suggesting endless vistas of existential pain and decay. Glimpse the world of the nameless protagonist in this eldritch tale, which is by no means for the faint of heart.

Hacking at Leaves documents artist and hazmat-suit aficionado Johannes Grenzfurthner as he attempts to come to terms with the United States' colonial past, Navajo tribal history, and the hacker movement. The story hones in on a small tinker space in Durango, Colorado, that made significant contributions to worldwide COVID relief efforts. But things go awry when Uncle Sam interferes with the film's production.

In a world where technology and humanity intertwine, Tiffany, a self-aware feminist "sex robot", embarks on a journey of self-discovery. Conversing with leading experts, Tiffany confronts the issues that have shaped her design and asks about queerness concerning sex tech.

SLUGFEST emerges as a playful, engaging martial arts experience that delves into the "inner-feminist struggles" that have characterized recent years and decades. Yet, unlike narratives of division, this film champions the concept of unity, emphasizing the dire need for solidarity and deeper mutual respect within feminist discourse. The film's central motif is a stylized, choreographed sparring training that, while aimed at empowerment and self-discovery, can sometimes escalate beyond control. This metaphorical approach isn't about antagonism but represents the passionate debates that fuel progress and understanding, even when they momentarily seem to get out of hand. "There is no losing in martial arts. Either you win or you learn." - as Karate Kid would say today.

This hyper-intersectional film is an amalgam of sci-fi creature-flick, campy music video, grotesque comedy, agitprop flick against heterocentric research as well as (soft-)pornographic subversive statement. "FUDLIAKS! Tear the sexes apart!" is set in an undefined present, in a mysterious laboratory: the Institute for Gender Normalization. The research subject of this neo-conservative think tank: the scientific underpinnings of conventional heteronormative bodies and biologically binary genders. But a new research series turns all that on its head!

The documentary portrays Erich Finsches, a true Viennese original and Holocaust survivor. Based on over six years of collected material by director Matthias Jaklitsch, who supported Erich on his travels, the film shows him as a positive, humorous, but also argumentative and unique personality in all his humanity. At 97, Erich continues to tirelessly advocate for remembrance of the past, attending memorial ceremonies and schools to spread his message of "Never Again." Instead of a traditional "eyewitness narrative," the film not only documents Erich's life, his youth during Nazi persecution, and his rebuilding of a new life after the war, but also the relationship between the director and the protagonist.