But Beautiful is a film about human connectedness and the courage to change. It is a film about the freedom to be happy.
Love is not merely a feeling. Love is an immeasurable force that connects us. Trusting this force is one of the most important challenges we face. There are people who serve as role models, people who act within and through connections. This film is dedicated to them and their stories.
In times of constant crisis, problems and catastrophic news reporting all over the world, the Austrian filmmaker Erwin Wagenhofer felt the pressuring need to counteract this consuming negativity by portraying stories of hope, positive change and engagement: Illiterate women becoming solar engineers in India; a Swiss couple turning wasteland in La Palma into paradise; a former Austrian forester developing the healthiest houses on earth; or the Dalai Lama, one of the spiritual leader of our times spreading essential messages and his Tibetan sister with a big heart for the youth. But Beautiful is connecting every single one of them.
The powerful film has been screened at the Embassy of Austria on Tuesday, Mach 10. The screening was followed by a Q&A with director and producer Erwin Wagenhofer and producer Sabine Kriechbaum, with whom he wrote the screenplay and published a book with the same title.
Film Screening at the Embassy of Austria
When: Tuesday, March 10, 2020 | 7:00 pm
Where: Austrian Cultural Forum, 3524 International Court, NW, Washington, DC 20008
Ticket: Free admission, registration obligatory.
Parking on International Court is available after 6:30 pm (for the duration of the event) or on 36th Street; access to the Embassy through the park behind the building.
ABOUT THE FILM
Is everything going to be ok?
Austrian film director and producer Erwin Wagenhofer does not take this easy way out. In his most recent film “But Beautiful” he is looking for the beautiful and good and depicts people who are forging new paths. How could a good, successful life look like? Is a “different” life even possible? The outcome of Wagenhofer’s pondering over those questions is a film about perspectives without fear, about ties with music, nature and society, about people with different ideas but one big shared goal: a world fit for the future.
Everything is going to be ok. It is possible.
After his valiant as well as essential films We Feed The World, Let’s Make Money and Alphabet, which discuss the ethics behind the food industry, the financial system, and the educational system, the renowned Austrian film maker Erwin Wagenhofer shifts his focus in his new documentary to the positive things in life. Dysfunctionality and societal failure are no longer the center of attention. In a longstanding search, Wagenhofer discovered people and stories who tell us about an alternative way of life, always bearing the good and the beautiful in mind. The result is a tribute to being alive in the shape of a film – a poetic composition of fascinating images and sounds, which carry the ability to change. A film about beauty-preceded by a “but”.
Directed by: Erwin Wagenhofer | Countries: Austria, Germany | Year: 2019 | Runtime: 116 min | Screenplay: Sabine Kriechbaum, Erwin Wagenhofer | Camera: Erwin Wagenhofer | Producers: Sabine Kriechbaum, Erwin Wagenhofer, Peter Rommel | With: Lucia Pulido, Kenny Werner, Mario Rom, Bunker Roy, Barbara u. Erich Graf, Erwin Thoma, and others
ABOUT THE FILM MAKERS
Photo | Sabine Kriechbaum und Erwin Wagenhofer (c) Franzi Kreis
Erwin Wagenhofer | Director, Producer
Erwin Wagenhofer, born in 1961, is an Austrian author and film director. After finishing the training to become an electrical and communications engineer, he spent many years working as director, producer, author and lecturer. With 800,000 cinema visitors in Europe, his documentary We Feed The World (2005) was a huge success. Erwin Wagenhofer’s movies have been awarded many international prizes, the German Documentary Award in 2009 being one of them.
Sabine Kriechbaum | Producer
Born in 1969, Sabine Kriechbaum studied Architecture in Vienna. After a short career as an architect, she started working as an author and producer for theater and film. She is the co-author of Wagenhofer’s films Alphabet (2013) and But Beautiful (2019), and co-founder of the Imagine Film Cooperation (2016).
