Words by Zola Jesus

As a frequent traveller on tour, it’s always interesting to visit a country and reflect on the products of its artists. I like to wonder where it all comes from. How is that some countries excel at certain disciplines, or share a similar palette of artistic expression? For instance, what has made Italy the home of opera? What pulls the French towards romanticism? Why is South American art so magical and full of color? What makes a region speak to an entire nation of artists in a similar brushstroke? It’s always a curious puzzle, trying to link together the political history with the sketch of the soil. Some countries—like Sweden, for instance—have a shockingly robust film industry, while Russia excels at literature but struggles even today to find a foothold in cinema.

And then there is Austria, a very curious little nation. How is it such a small country could harvest such a fertile artistic landscape? Musically, they’ve given us everyone from Mozart to Schoenberg. The country can also claim iconic visual artists like Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele and the Viennese Actionists. Unsurprisingly, there seems to be a pattern linking all of these figures: a groundbreaking, often difficult creative energy hell-bent on holding a mirror up to nature.

This lineage does not stop with cinema. From what I’ve gathered in my fervent exploration of this country’s film industry, it boasts a similar hotbed of iconoclasts and button pushers…