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We’re excited to share that & have been selected to take part in Talent Days as part of the Gewächshaus Community 💚

ARI SALAZAR is a filmmaker and cinematographer whose work oscillates between fiction and documentary, exploring themes of ecological grief, spectral histories and the clash between tradition and modernity in our artificial present . She completed her degree in Ethnographic and Documentary Filmmaking (MA) at University College London and is studying cinematography at the dffb (German Film and Television Academy Berlin). She is currently in post production for a docu-fiction feature on a fisherwoman and her life in an Aegean coastal town and developing an anthology of three experimental short films on lived experiences of the climate crisis funded by the FFF Artist Grant.

ALI AMIRI, a Vienna-based Iranian filmmaker and video artist, studies Film at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, focusing on experimental cinema. His work, shown in Tehran, Paris, Toronto, and Vienna, includes video art, music videos, and visual-musical performances. He explores memory, trauma, identity, and displacement, weaving poetic reflections, often through the soliloquies of his characters.

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Talent Days (May 27–29) by Vienna Shorts aims to be an inspiring platform designed to nurture emerging talents and provide meaningful opportunities for professional development.

The fourth edition features a comprehensive program, including best-practice sessions, guest lectures, film screenings, a work-in-progress presentation, and various networking opportunities with industry professionals, festival representatives, and future colleagues. The program is designed for an international group of roughly 40 film and visual arts students.

Join us for from 26th-31st of May! ✨As part of this year’s festival, we curated the program Performed As Given: How Realities Are Staged, Repeated and Undone, curated by Mara Chavez (.achavez).

🗓️ Sunday, 31st of May, 20:00 start
📍 Metro Historic Auditorium ()
🗣️ Q&A with Sophia Yuet See (, ) moderated by Mara Chavez (.achavez) after the program

Attention shifts from content to construction, where realities are re-enacted, circulated and kept in play. How do archives, art, science and film sustain what passes as given? In this program, the performance does not quite hold. Echoes of colonial image-making resurface – gestures repeat, roles shift, meaning slips. Moving through spectacle and storytelling, these films stage myth until it starts to crumble. What appears as given reveals itself as constructed. Attention: the frame shows!

Curated by Mara Chavez (Gewächshaus)
In cooperation with Gewächshaus

Win 1x2 tickets to see All My Sisters by , screening this Friday, May 8 at 6 PM at 🎬

HOW TO ENTER 🔖
1. Like & share this post
2. Follow .network
3. Comment who you’d bring to the screening

We’ll pick a winner on May 7 at midday, announce them in our stories, and contact them via DM 💌

ALL MY SISTERS
Tehran, Iran. Between 2007 and 2025, we follow three sisters as they grow up in a loving family. Eighteen years, from early childhood to everyday life as young women searching for freedom. Raised in traditional ways, the sisters witness and become protagonists in the struggles of a youth in constant flux. What does their future hold in today’s Iranian society?

Following the screening, we invite you to a panel discussion exploring how growing up under restrictive political regimes is shaped. The discussion aims to create a space for exchanging ideas about resilience, identity, and the role of young people in shaping change.

Please note: The film will be shown in Farsi with English subtitles; the subsequent discussion will be held in English.

Film & Discussion in cooperation with the Bruno Kreisky Forum ()

Moments from the Gewächshaus community at 2026: ’s Baba, Ne Yapmayı Düşünüyorsun? (Baba, What’s Your Plan?) premiered at Diagonale 2026, followed by a Q&A with 🌟

The film received the Prize for Best Documentary as well as the .award for Best Inclusive Film.

Tolga Karaaslan (*1994, Wels, AT) is a filmmaker and media artist with roots in Turkey. His work explores living between cultures and the search for identity, using a visual, atmospheric storytelling style that allows characters to unfold within their own worlds.

Baba, Ne Yapmayı Düşünüyorsun? / Baba, What’s Your Plan?

Film Synopsis: Celal Karaaslan, a Turkish migrant from Austria, asks his son what he should do in life. Usually, it was Celal who had the answers. Shaped by both physically demanding work and cancer, he is no longer able to work. However, his question initiates a journey together to find a purpose in life.

This year, we once again invited BIPOC voices to moderate film discussions and lead audience Q&As at 2026 in Graz.

One of our moderators this year was , and we’d love to shine a bit of light on her on our page 🤍

İklim Doğan (*TR, 1994) is an artist, architect and researcher based in Vienna. Her work delves into historiography and historical materialism; juxtaposing different disciplines and discourses across mediums such as fabric, text, video, installation, and film.

Photographs by .films 💐

Gewächshaus x Diagonale 2026 Community Dinner 🥹🧡

So special to gather again this year. Thank you for being there, for sharing, connecting, and making space for meaningful conversations. And a big thank you to for partnering with us and helping bring this dinner to life.

Photos by .films

Learning from the Best is back, join us on May 7! 🌟

This session dives into the ÖFI & FFW Talent Lab, a great opportunity for filmmakers working on their first or second feature.

ÖFI is launching the third edition of its Talent Lab, offering:
• Funding for feature films (up to €1.2M)
• Funding for documentaries (up to €280K)
• Workshops, info sessions & individual mentoring

Who can apply?
Director, screenwriter, and producer teams with a finished screenplay.

🗓️Key deadlines:
• Apply for a consultation with ÖFI by May 20
• Project submission deadline: June 16

🔗 More info: https://filminstitut.at/foerderportal/talent-lab

On May 7 (14:00, Brunnenpassage), we’ll share insights from our own experience - from the application process to what you can expect from the lab 📹 If you’re planning to submit, make sure to prepare your materials ahead of the session.

✉️ To join, email [email protected] by May 4
Feel free to include any specific questions or topics you’d like us to cover in the email.

Don’t miss this opportunity!

A selection of moments from Weltmuseum Wien × CEU SYMPOSIUM with contributions by Gewächshaus: Critical Fabulation and Anonymity in the Weltmuseum Wien’s Photography Collection.

We left this symposium and peer exchange feeling deeply inspired by the engagement with sensitive and often overlooked photographic archives. We are sincerely grateful for the contributions of GW community members and students 🤍

Featured Projects:

Aj xíinbal by Marlene Galaz & Klara Maass (Image 6 & 10)
The Book of Oil: A Traveller’s Guide by Giunel Mamedova, Astghik Aslanyan (Image 1, 8, 11 & 12)
Next stop: Vienna by Lili Katai (Image 9)
Those Who Dream, See the Hidden History by Elene Kajaia (Image 13)

Intervening Silenced Histories by Tayla Myree (Image 3)
A Simulated Life is as Real as it Gets: Autofiction and the Re-sensing Colonial Monuments by Melanie Sien Min Lyn (Image 2)
From Archive to Terrain: Speculative Methods for Re-Sensing Colonial Monuments by Mara Chavez (Image 7)
Pfeifferia: From Absence to Island by Maeva Ranaivojaona (Image 4)

Developed in the context of the x course on “Photographer Unknown,” the event reflects on anonymity, power, and archival gaps - opening space for speculative approaches that re-read, re-imagine, and expand access to museum collections.

Photographs: Elene Kajaia

We’re beyond excited to finally share that a Q&A with , moderated by , will follow the screening of The Watermelon Woman this Thursday (23.4) at 💫

Using the romantic comedy as its framework, ‘The Watermelon Woman’ blends archival research and fiction, humor and q***r perspective to interrogate how race and sexuality have been represented on screen. A film about overlooked histories, visibility, and the right to tell your own story on your own terms.

Directed by Cheryl Dunye

🗓️ April 23, 2026
🌙Screening: 8-9:30 PM followed by a Q&A witch Cheryl Dunye and Faris Cuchi Gezahgen
📍 Brunnenpassage, Brunnengasse 71, 1160 Vienna
💌 entry is free!

Learning from the Best is back this week on April 23, 2026 - mark your calendars and join us at ✨

We often encounter blanks in the archive. Can we trust the information it holds? What if the archive is an unreliable narrator?

In this session, we come together to explore these questions. We share approaches, references, and examples from our own work. Building on our last workshop with Mary Martins, and recent exchanges with Weltmuseum Wien and Central European University, we’ll consider the potential of speculation and fiction to reimagine what has been historically left out.

You are warmly invited to bring your work, at whatever stage it may be (an early idea, a current edit, or a past project). This is an informal setting intended for sharing and feedback, where desired.

Co-Working Session: 15:30–18:30
Cinemarkt x Gewächshaus-Screening: 20:00-till late

🌸April 23, 2026
📍 Brunnenpassage, Brunnengasse 71, 1160 Vienna

💌 Participation is free, but please register at: [email protected]

Co-working circle for filmmakers affected by structural racism. Screening is open to all - no registration necessary.