Franz Novotny
Franz Novotny, Vienna, 28 November 2023
“I’m incredibly credulous.”
Filmmaker, author, and producer Franz Novotny is one of New Austrian Cinema’s most colorful figures— being an autodidact who originally wanted to become a fine artist and who has an incomparable feel for conflict. In “Staatsoperette,” he joined forces with Otto M. Zykan to create a work that touched off one of the biggest scandals in Austrian television history. His biggest cinematic hit, entitled “EXIT – nur keine Panik,” owes its success not least to appearances by avant-garde greats such as Peter Weibel and Kurt Kren. And his adaptation of Elfriede Jelinek’s scandalous novel “Die Ausgesperrten” [“Wonderful, Wonderful Times”—film title: “The Excluded”] remains one of the important feature films of recent decades. In this conversation, he looks back upon his postwar youth in an Austria where great artistic diversity blossomed behind gray facades.
“I’m incredibly credulous.”
Filmmaker, author, and producer Franz Novotny is one of New Austrian Cinema’s most colorful figures— being an autodidact who originally wanted to become a fine artist and who has an incomparable feel for conflict. In “Staatsoperette,” he joined forces with Otto M. Zykan to create a work that touched off one of the biggest scandals in Austrian television history. His biggest cinematic hit, entitled “EXIT – nur keine Panik,” owes its success not least to appearances by avant-garde greats such as Peter Weibel and Kurt Kren. And his adaptation of Elfriede Jelinek’s scandalous novel “Die Ausgesperrten” [“Wonderful, Wonderful Times”—film title: “The Excluded”] remains one of the important feature films of recent decades. In this conversation, he looks back upon his postwar youth in an Austria where great artistic diversity blossomed behind gray facades.