OSCARS AND VIENNA

On the same day as the 97th Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles, we explore Vienna as a film location, and also those players in the industry who were born here and went on to create parts of the American Dream in moving pictures, in exile. Austria has won various Oscars, both for actors like Christoph Walz, directors like Fritz Lang, Sam Spiegel (Lawrence of Arabia, On the Waterfront), Billy Wilder (Some like it Hot, Sunset Boulevard) and Michael Haneke, and several times the Foreign Language award, which is one of the most prestigious.

Of course the awards do not always recognise the best culture, but somehow the award, like Eurovision - is so present that people refer to all other ceremonies as the Oscars for -gardening, -plastic manufacturers, or whatever. A beautiful and atmospheric tour, celebrating a very cinematic city. And a recognition of Viennese creativity.

It is impossible not to discuss the Shoah in this context, and why our city lost so much of its dynamism and humour and ideas with the Jews, after 1938. We will listen to soundtracks, hear stories of emigres and the way their European sensibility played out across the Atlantic. Sometimes, films set in Vienna are actually produced in Prague or Budapest, or vice versa.

We invited the Vienna Film Commission to contribute to the tour, but they were not interested. We will explore the role of various layers of bureaucracy which control Austrian film-making.

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