DIE BESTE STADT IST KEINE STADT

Austria

Synopsis

A young man, sitting on a rusty hangar, playing his guitar. An abandoned wooden church, no longer needed, re-locating to the outskirts of an urban expansion area for cultural interim usage. Nursery school children in a chair circle telling each other what they are NOT doing. In his essay film THE BEST CITY IS NO CITY AT ALL, Christoph Schwarz mixes multiple perspectives on Vienna's largest urban expansion area. They share a sentimental criticism of growth and a romantic refusal to progress while facing imminent ecological collapse, which seems more credible to us than any happy ending.

Director's Statement

I was fascinated by the idea of choosing an old wooden church from the 1940s and a satellite-town as my two protagonists. To formulate a more general statement on growth and greenwashing, I decided to skip the names of Seestadt Aspern (the biggest city expansion area in Vienna) and Notgalerie (former church, now used as exhibition & project space, www.notgalerie.at). I am part of the Notgalerie collective and mix my memories of being a teenager in this suburban area of the city with the story of Reinhold Zisser, who discovered the abandoned church and squatted it to use it for art installations. If my film is nominated for the top 5 of EFA, I would suggest to produce an English voice over.

Director's Biography

Born in 1981, Christoph Schwarz lives in Vienna/Austria. He graduated from the University of Applied Arts Vienna with a diploma in Media Arts in 2006.
His projects mainly emerge out of self-involved set-ups, in which he blends fact and fiction into humorous narratives that can find their respective formal shape in performance, installations and short film, and have been shown at exhibitions and film festivals internationally.

FILMOGRAPHY (excerpt):
2017 CSL
2016 IBIZA
2015 SUPERCARGO
2013 KROCHACARRALDO
2013 DER SENDER SCHLÄFT
2010 SUPERCRAGO
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Cast & Crew

Directed by: Christoph Schwarz

Written by: Christoph Schwarz

Produced by: Christoph Schwarz

Cinematography: Christoph Schwarz

Editing: Christoph Schwarz

Original Score: Matthias Peyker

Sound Design: Matthias Peyker

Cast: Natalie Kuzmich (voice-over)

Nominations and Awards

  • Short Film Candidates 2020