BiograPHY Anja Salomonowitz


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© Heribert Corn
Anja Salomonowitz has developed her own film language for her films, in which documentary film, feature film and thesis are mixed. Real experiences of people are condensed through artistic alienation. Her hybrid films all follow a strict color concept. She is known for the fact that her films are explicitly political and expand the boundaries and possibilities of the cinematic in their artistic form. Her films have received international recognition and numerous film awards. They have found their way into the relevant film literature. They are screened at numerous international film festivals.

Her film IT HAPPENED JUST BEFORE, for example, had its world premiere in the Forum of the Berlinale 2007, where it won the Caligari Film Prize. This film on the subject of trafficking in women defies the rules of documentary film and is still considered a milestone in hybrid documentary storytelling today. THIS MOVIE IS A GIFT reflects on forms of the artist portrait: an unusual and tender portrait of the artist Daniel Spoerri, in which her son Oskar Salomonowitz plays the artist.

Anja Salomonowitz studied film in Vienna and Berlin and worked as an assistant to director Ulrich Seidl. She works with students at universities on their films, for example at the Aalto University Helsinki, Department for Film and Television or at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. She is a tutor at the Documentary Academy at the Jihlava International Film Festival, together with the Filipino filmmaker Khavn de La Cruz. She was chairwoman of the Austrian Documentary Film Association and the Austrian Film Directors Association and from 2014-2017 on the supervisory board of the Austrian Film Fund. Anja Salomonowitz works as a dramaturge for the Austrian Screenplay Association. She holds master classes on artistic film.

Her new film SLEEPING WITH A TIGER is a creative, inner portrait of the painter Maria Lassnig. Like memories and feelings that are not anchored in time and can evoke images at any time, as they did for Maria Lassnig, Anja Salomonowitz's hybrid film about the artist is not told in a linear fashion. Lassnig's work stands above all for the introspective feeling of one's own physical sensations and their artistic expression. The film makes this visionary approach to art not only visible, but tangible and experienceable.

Anja Salomonowitz lives in Vienna and writes her screenplays in Kritzendorf on the Danube. She is currently working on a film about the Ukrainian activist Inna Shevshenko, the prominent founder of the feminist group FEMEN. The film is an embodiment of FEMEN's visual political art and represents new pop feminism.

And because it is important, I would like to write something about my „private life“ here: I am mother of three sons. My middle son Oskar passed away in 2020 when he was twelve years old. That is why I am in mourning. Oskar has acted in many of my films, among others in THIS MOVIE IS A GIFT, where he lovingly recounts the life story of the artist Daniel Spoerri. 



AWARDS


 

 

YOU WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND THIS

2003 Audience Award, Vienna International Student Film Festival 2004 Prix Regards Neufs, Nyon, Visions du Réel
 

IT JUST HAPPENED BEFORE

2007 New Vision Best Director Award, Alba Film Festival

2007 Peace Film Award of the City of Osnabrück

2007 Award for the best image design, Diagonale, Festival of Austrian Film 2007 Innovative Artistic Award, Mar del Plata, Argentina

2007 Special Mention, Cinéma du Réel, Paris

2007 Caligari Film Award, Berlinale

2006 Vienna Film Award, Viennale Vienna International Film Festival
 

THE 727 DAYS WITHOUT KARAMO

2013 Silver Eye Award, Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival
 

THE BOY WILL BE CIRCUMCISED

2017 Dorothea Neff Award for the Children‘s Ensemble
 

THIS MOVIE IS A GIFT

2021 Franz Grabner Award
 

ANJA SALOMONOWITZ

2010 Outstanding Artist Award of the Federal Ministry of Art and Culture

2019 Honorary Award of the Womens Filmdays for the film series RESISTANCE CINEMA



MY SON OSKAR


 


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AT WORK


 


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