The Codes of Gender

Arguing that advertising not only sells things, but also ideas about the world, media scholar Sut Jhally offers a blistering analysis of commercial culture's inability to let go of reactionary gender representations. Jhally's starting point is the breakthrough work of the late sociologist Erving Goffman, whose 1959 book The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life prefigured the growing field of performance studies. Jhally applies Goffman's analysis of the body in print advertising to hundreds of print ads today, uncovering an astonishing pattern of regressive and destructive gender codes. By looking beyond advertising as a medium that simply sells products, and beyond analyses of gender that tend to focus on either biology or objectification, The Codes of Gender offers important insights into the social construction of masculinity and femininity, the relationship between gender and power, and the everyday performance of cultural norms.

2010-10-13 | en

Manifesting the Mind: Footprints of the Shaman

In these interviews, Dennis McKenna, Alex Grey, Rick Strassman, and other champions of psychedelics share their views on the value of psychedelic medicine, and its neglect in Western society.

2009-01-01 | en

We Feed the World

A documentary that exposes the shocking truths behind industrial food production and food wastage, focusing on fishing, livestock and crop farming. A must-see for anyone interested in the true cost of the food on their plate.

2005-09-10 | de

Der Weg zu Dir

A movie about intersexuality

2014-02-05 | de

Der Stoff, aus dem Träume sind

2019-04-30 | de

Herbert von Karajan: Maestro for the Screen

Documentary on conductor Herbert van Karajan, focusing on his early adoption of audio and video recording technology and his impetus to make use of it to preserve his musical legacy for future generations.

2008-04-07 | de

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story

The life and career of the hailed Hollywood movie star and underappreciated genius inventor, Hedy Lamarr.

2018-06-06 | en

Aufstand im Bordell - Frauenhandel um 1900

2024-03-05 | de

De Maude à Justin

Maude is 17 years old. At birth, she shows signs that make it impossible to identify her gender. The doctors decide she's a girl. Today, she's preparing for a surgical procedure that will transform her into a young man named Justin.

2015-05-04 | fr

Never Be Boring: Billy Wilder

A funny walk through the life story of Billy Wilder (1906-2002), a cinematic genius; a portrait of a filmmaker who never was a boring man, a superb mind who had ten commandments, of which the first nine were: “Thou shalt not bore.”

2017-10-28 | de

Klimt & The Kiss

The Kiss by Gustav Klimt is one of the most recognised and reproduced paintings in the world. It is perhaps the most popular poster on student dorm walls from Beijing to Boston. Painted in Vienna around 1908, the evocative image of an unknown embracing couple has captivated viewers with its mystery, sensuality and dazzling materials ever since it was created. But just what lies behind the appeal of the painting – and just who was the artist that created it? Delving into the details of real gold, decorative designs, symbolism and simmering erotica, a close study of the painting takes us to the remarkable turn of the century Vienna when a new world was battling with the old.

2023-10-30 | en

Jiyana Rewsenbireki Kurd: Casimê Celîl

Casimê Celîl was born into a Yezidi Kurdish family in 1908, in a village called Kızılkule, located in Digor, Kars. The village and family life, which he longed to remember throughout his life, ends with the massacre they endured in 1918. During his long road to Erivan, Armenia, he lost all his family members. Left all alone, Casim was placed into an orphanage and was forced to change his name. To remember who he was and where he came from, every morning he repeated the mantra “Navê min Casim e, Ez kurê Celîlim, Ez ji gundê Qizilquleyê Dîgorê me, Ez Kurdim, Kurdê Êzîdî me”, which translates to: “My name is Casim, I am the son of Celîl, I come from the village of Kızılkule in Digor, I am a Kurd, and I am Yezidi”. He clings to every piece of his culture he can find, reads, and saves whatever Kurdish literature or art he comes across. As the year’s pass, Casim finds himself with an impressive collection of Kurdish culture and history.

2021-12-10 | ku

Davina McCall: Sex, Myths and the Menopause

Davina was 44 and felt like she was losing it - hot flushes, depression, mental fog. Now she tells her menopause story, busting midlife taboos from sex to hormone treatment.

2021-05-12 | en

Pianomania

Pianomania takes the audience on a humorous journey through the secret world of sound and accompanies Stefan Knüpfer in his extraordinary work with the greatest pianists in the world. To select the instrument that corresponds to the vision of the virtuoso, according it to his desire and accompany him until he goes on stage, Stefan Knüpfer has developed nerves of steel, a boundless passion and above ability to translate words into sounds.

2009-01-28 | de

Elfriede & Elfriede

Two friends, two Viennese, two poets, two unusual women. They have known each other for 30 years. Elfriede Jelinek is the better known of the two, the great author with her analytical mind and her social commitment against the whole "politician's docks." The now deceased lyricist Elfriede Gerstl remains rather tender with her poetry, although her poems do not miss a certain amount of sharpness, albeit ironically packed. When the two Elfrieden sit in their Viennese coffee house and drink the little brown, they usually talk about clothes, they talk about the fashion that Elfriede Gerstl has just collected again.

2004-06-14 | de

Alma Anciana

Three juxtaposing stories taking place in Portugal, Austria and Cuba create an intimate and poetic portrait of the daily lives and struggles of the elderly in an unstable world, seen through the eyes of their grandchildren.

2024-10-31 | pt

War in Vienna

A film about news, life and death. Before the media became so prevalent, we were concerned about our immediate neighborhood. At the end of the day, news was the subject of our conversations, but now it's possible to converse with someone at the other end of the globe. We do it all the time. It's simple. The world has become one big neighborhood. Now Headline News has replaced the back fence. That's the news service of the eigthies. It's a new idea and a new approach.

1989-01-01 | de

Alltagsgeschichte – Treffpunkt U-Bahn

Ignaz Wuzel and Gerhard Jeschko are regulars at the espresso in the Südtiroler Platz underground station. Warden Leopold Prinz knows the problems of the children from Karlsplatz. In 1993, Elizabeth T. Spira filmed people on the Vienna subway network. Above all, it is the desperate, the lost and the forgotten who find refuge and a home in and around the subway.

1993-12-31 | de

Orchids: My Intersex Adventure

Along the roads of Australia travels a small film crew headed by filmmaker Phoebe Hart, who is determined to turn this on-the-road trip into a journey of self-discovery. Her hermaphroditism played a painful and significant role in her past: she has had to deal with it from her adolescence on, but now this conflict has happily been solved. Even her relationship with her parents was damaged by her condition: in her opinion they were to blame for having forced her to undergo a traumatic operation to remove her internal testicles. Along the road, she will connect with other intersex people, ready to open up to her about their common condition. Will Phoebe succeed in openly confronting her mother, who is reluctant to be interviewed, and to talk about an issue that is so important for her? Will she find the answers she is looking for? A journey of self-discovery that is difficult, but at the same time light, ironic and detached.

2010-11-06 | en

Egon Schiele: Between Love and Hate

An account of the short life and the astonishing and provocative work of the Austrian painter Egon Schiele (1890-1918), seen through the peculiar point of view and the critic voices of the women who defined the paramount milestones of his existence: Gerti, his sister; Wally, his main model and lover; and Edith, his wife. A brief story of love, hate, betrayal and misfortune.

2018-11-04 | de