Vicky Krieps gives a superb performance as Empress Elisabeth of Austria in Marie Kreutzer’s splendid biopic. Blending historical fact and whimsical creative license, Kreutzer takes us back to the late 19th century: the Empress, pushing 40, is a most discontented woman. Obsessed with her appearance, Elisabeth takes her corset as a measurement of beauty, and is determined that it must be laced tighter and tighter. She’s been politically sidelined against her will, and is growing restless and rebellious.
With sly inventiveness, wry humour, and a strong feel for visual splendour, Kreutzer guides us through Elisabeth’s world. It’s one of great opulence, but also stifling confinement; the writer-director portrays the luxury and the oppression as two sides of the same coin. As the Empress moves to protect her legacy and recapture the passion of her youth, the film deepens in power. The final act is a bold departure from the historical record, with Kreutzer asserting her feminist prerogative and giving her film a subversive conclusion.
Best Performance Prize (Vicky Krieps), Cannes 2022 (Un Certain Regard)
Vicky Krieps, Florian Teichtmeister, Katharina Lorenz, Jeanne Werner, Alma Hasun, Manuel Rubey, Finnegan Oldfield, Aaron Friesz, Rosa Hajjaj
Austria/France/Germany
2022
In English, French, German, and Hungarian with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Lust
Ralitza Petrova follows her Golden Leopard-winning debut with an emotionally textured drama about a middle-aged prison psychologist whose carefully managed routine unravels when she must travel to Bulgaria to settle her late, estranged father’s affairs.
Image: © Aporia Filmworks_Screening Emotions
A Girl Unknown
In this tender, compassionate drama, we see the hardships endured by a young girl adopted in the early 1980s during China’s one-child policy. As a teenager in the 90s, she’s still fighting to find a sense of belonging and assert her worth.
Lifeline
When a Somali youth worker is assigned a high-stakes case, her professional responsibilities pull her back toward a community — and a past — she has worked to leave behind. Lifeline is an intimate exploration of belonging and responsibility.
Let Them Be Seen
Let Them Be Seen is an absurdist portrait of the town of Tapoleng in South Africa’s Eastern Cape, moving through churches, spaza shops, and a Jam Alley re-enactment to document a village reshaping faith and community in post-apartheid life.
The Flight
The Flight follows three Iranian-Canadian families seeking justice after Flight PS752 was shot down, offering a compassionate and forceful tribute to grief, resilience, and community advocacy.
I Plant My Hand in the Garden
Boris and Hoda, a newly married couple from Serbia and Iran, respectively, embark on a new chapter of their lives in Berlin. As they anticipate the birth of their child, they refuse to be defined by societal expectations.
Credits
Executive Producer
Vicky Krieps
Producer
Alexander Glehr, Johanna Scherz
Screenwriter
Marie Kreutzer
Cinematography
Judith Kaufmann
Editor
Ulrike Kofler
Production Design
Martin Reiter
Original Music
Camille
Director
Photo by Pamela Rußmann
Marie Kreutzer
After graduating with distinction from the Vienna Film Academy, Marie Kreutzer worked as a script supervisor and in continuity in cinema and TV productions and made a variety of award-winning short films.
Her first feature film, The Fatherless (2011), has been shown and awarded at numerous festivals, including the Berlinale’s Panorama Special and was nominated for the Thomas Pluch Screenplay Award and the Austrian Film Award. Kreutzer is a board member of the Drehbuchverband und Drehbuchforum Austria since 2007 and a member of the Austrian Film Institute’s supervisory board since 2017.
Filmography: The Fatherless (2011); Gruber is leaving (2015); We Used to be Cool (2016); The Ground Beneath My Feet (2019)