By Dennis Vetter

Since 2016 the Diagonale has taken place under the direction of Sebastian Höglinger and Peter Schernhuber, who introduced the “In Referenz” programme as their most striking statement, a rail that should show lines of thought and spaces of possibility between the festival sections. Here, for example, film programmes comment on specific exhibitions, while Austrian productions meet international works or current perspectives meet historical ones. The section embodies a curatorial freedom within the program that is lacking in its consequence at many comparable events. A very welcome enrichment, then! And a call to search for connecting lines with a sharpened view, not to look at cinema in a vacuum, but to question its roots and obligations time and again.