VIENNA CALLING

AT/DE 2023, 85 min, Philipp Jedicke

Vienna, the former music capital of Europe, has become increasingly relevant again. With the wry approach that is typical of this city, the young underground music scene there romanticizes the raw and rabid.

Hedonist and nihilist at the same time, the young Viennese artists embody the opposite of self-optimization. They are unadjusted, eccentric characters – and they are filling concert halls not only in Austria, but also in Germany and Switzerland. VIENNA CALLING starts with the aim of being a music documentary. But increasingly, the true protagonist emerges as the city of Vienna itself. Like a flâneur, the camera saunters by day and night through the lanes, bars and casual joints of Vienna, taking diversions, becoming lost only to find its way again.

The strolling rhythm is instigated by the music, performed by Viennese artists and their famous charm or "Schmäh". Part documentary, part staged, interwoven with musical performances, the project gradually reveals itself as a mosaic of eccentricity. VIENNA CALLING digs deep into the catacombs of Viennese culture far from the mainstream. With its many performances and semi-fictional scenes, VIENNA CALLING is not a music documentary in the classic sense of the word, but rather a docu-musical.

The film provides a stage for Viennese artists like the Turkish-Austrian duo EsRAP, who are first generation immigrants, non-binary rap artist Kerosin95, radical feminist authors Stefanie Sargnagel and Lydia Haider, songwriters Voodoo Ju?rgens and Der Nino aus Wien, and many more. VIENNA CALLING is a poetic approximation to the underground scene of an old European metropolis that experiences the current cultural changes and conflicts of our time. Viennese artists take the room they need for their art in a city that becomes increasingly gentrified. VIENNA CALLING is an homage to daring artists, it is about the hardships of creating art and art's need for space and independence.