WIR SIND WIEN.FESTIVAL: TONI SPIRA - REALITY TV A LA WIEN

Elisabeth Toni Spira was born in Scotland, and started making TV for ORF in 1974. Here we will be celebrating her 50th anniversary, her life and the pioneering spirit of a journalist who changed the way Austria saw itself. In a radical move, she gave people time to explain their world, with subtle questions, space and respect. Her documentaries were sometimes uncomfortable viewing, because there was no other platform for people to air their social and political views at the time. She was communist, Jew and a woman, which makes her adventurous broadcasting even more astonishing in the mid-1970s. She was brave and her shows democratic. We will look at her early life in Hietzing, and of course visit some of the locations of her famous television reports, both on Alltagsgeschichte, but also Teleobjektiv and Liebesg'schichten und Heiratssachen. We will listen to extracts from key programmes.

Though we never see her face, her presence is so vital to the success of these pieces of history - time capsules of another era. Her work was controversial, and she never stopped being a rebel, experiencing racism and ignorance.

This is the third in a new series where Eugene explores the lives of important Vienna women, after Hedy Lamarr and Johanna Dohnal. All these walks have been premiered at WIR SIND WIEN.FESTIVAL.