die sterreichische Film Commission

Renée Zellweger on the way to the set of BRIDGET JONES: THE EDGE OF REASON © Location Austria/Leo Baumgartner

Excellent filming conditions help generate a great variety of international audio-visual productions. Austria is a popular location for arthouse films, blockbusters, internationally successful TV-series, commercials, or acclaimed documentaries alike.

Austria’s success as a film location is partly due to the country’s safety and sophisticated infrastructure. Actors and crews also appreciate the high standard of living combined with manifold diversions.

Blockbusters such as BRIDGET JONES: THE EDGE OF REASON (starring Oscar-winner Renee Zellweger), XXX (starring Vin Diesel), CRAZY CANUCKS (directed by Randy Bradshaw), SEVEN YEARS IN TIBET (starring Brad Pitt), and EXTREME OPS (directed by Christian Duguay), and BERGKRISTALL (directed by Joseph Vilsmaier), all found ideal conditions to film in the Austrian Alps.

Great cooperation from public institutions and location owners build the foundation for success big budget productions, such as THE THREE MUSKETEERS, JAMES BOND: THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS, and the international co-production NAPOLEON, bank on. Austria’s fairy-tale locations have also become increasingly attractive to Indian film productions like CHAL MERE BHAI, VEDHAM, and AASHIO.

As a result of bilateral and multilateral co-production agreements, Austria has had a long tradition of participating in international co-productions. The most successful example of the past few years is the French-Austrian co-production, THE PIANO TEACHER, directed by Michael Haneke (see Austrian Film Success). Haneke’s follow up feature, WOLFSZEIT (LE TEMP DU LOUP) was produced with French and German partners.

Austrian-German co-productions brought forth many successful movies, such as NORTHER SKIRTS and FREE RADICALS, both directed by Barbara Albert, DER GLAESERNE BLICK, directed by Markus Heltschl, MY SISTER MARIA, directed by Maximilian Schell, and SCHWABENKINDER, directed by Jo Baier.

Anna Geislerová and György Cserhalmi in ZELARY © AFC/Dor Film

Austria’s historic role as a crossroads between East and West, in the center of Europe, has resulted in an increasing number of co-productions with Eastern European countries. The Czech-Austrian film ZELARY celebrated enormous international success. The love story of an educated woman, who fought in the resistance during World War II, and a simple farmer, received an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Feature in 2004. Another example for a fruitful Central European cooperation is the Austrian-German-Polish movie GEBUERTIG.

Nina Proll and Wang Zhiwen in FOR ALL ETERNITY © SK Film/Austrian Film Institute

An extraordinary cooperation came about with FOR ALL ETERNITY, the first-ever Chinese-Austrian co-production, directed by China’s Hu Mei, starring Wang Zhiwen and Austria’s Nina Proll.

International TV-series, such as POWDER PARK, produced by Columbia-Tristar (USA) and Oceanik (Germany), and the TENTH KINGDOM, a fantasy series produced by Hallmark Entertainment, NBC (USA) and Carnival Films (GB) are also on the list of international hit movies filmed at location in Austria.

Austria’s Alpine regions are especially popular with commercial productions, since they offer a snow guarantee even outside the traditional winter season. Additional competitive advantages are easy access to mountains and glaciers and advanced infrastructure which makes expensive helicopter transportation of equipment and crew a thing of the past. This is how companies like Audi (Germany), Tchibo (Germany), Jaguar (USA), Mercedes (Germany), Milka (Germany), and TUI Travel (Netherlands) enjoyed money- and time-savings for their advertising campaigns.

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