18. ETHNOCINECA
International Documentary Film Festival Vienna 2024
Thursday 16 to Wednesday 22 of May 2024
Welcome to the eighteenth iteration of eethnocineca – International Documentary Film Festival Vienna! From 16 to 22 May, the halls of the Votiv Kino and Kino De France will once again become the center of documentary film art and ethnographic filmmaking in Vienna.
47 feature-length and short films and an extensive side programme with a keynote, a masterclass, a panel discussion, a film talk, and numerous film discussions invite you to take an in-depth look at the societal and social dimensions of documentary cinema. This year, we encounter documentary film as an art form that negotiates and presents new understandings for and insights on interrelated socio-political issues and individual life experiences by means of vivid film-making techniques.
With our festival focus RE-RENDERING PERSPECTIVES, we emphasise the necessity of and demand for a change of perspective. The four focus programmes engage with the possibilities of film as a powerful artistic tool to contribute to a re-rendering of perspectives, to enable reflection and to achieve empowerment.
This year’s competition films show cutting edge and multifaceted international and Austrian documentary filmmaking. On the final day of the festival, the winners in the five Award categories will be announced in the Award ceremony’s festive setting, during which you will also enjoy the screening of the winners of the two short film awards.
We would like to thank all filmmakers and jurors, all sponsors and partners and the entire team of this year’s edition. We wish you inspiring and moving film experiences and much joy in immersing yourself in the cinematic world of images!
OPENING FILM 2024
DAUGHTER OF GENGHIS
Kristoffer Poulsen, Christian Als | Denmark, Sweden, France, Mongolia 2023 | 85 Min.
Mongolian with engl. Subtitles
In Ulaanbaatar, single mother Gerel leads a violent neo-nationalist feminist gang of women fighting for the purity of Mongolian blood against foreign exploitation and appropriation. In this struggle, her son Temuulen is neglected and Gerel runs the danger of losing everything that is important to her as life changes around her. Gerel’s views are inevitably called into question when both her relationship with her growing teenage son and the country itself undergo transformation.
DAUGHTER OF GENGHIS accompanies Gerel and her son for seven years on an emotional journey of transformations of a country and a mother caught between entrenched ideologies and new realities of life.
Festival Sujet 2024: DAUGHTER OF GENGHIS © Kristoffer Poulsen & Christian Als, 2024
