Oscar nomination for "Alles wird gut"

The graduate thesis film of Patrick Vollrath, directing graduate of Filmakademie Wien, is nominated for an Oscar in the category of "Best Live Action Short Film".

Photo: ©Matt Petit/ A.M.P.A.S.

With his film Alles wird gut (Everything Will Be Okay), mdw graduate Patrick Vollrath made Filmakademie history. In September 2015, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences awarded him a Student Oscar. This represents the highlight of a year that's been successful indeed for the 30-year-old German.

His feature film about a father who intends to kidnap his daughter managed to claim a whole series of important awards such as the Austrian Film Award for the best short film, the Max Ophüls Award for the best middle-length film and the FIRST STEPS Award. By winning the Student Academy Award the film has been qualified for this year's Oscars, which will be awarded on 28 February.

Furthermore the film Theeb by Naji Abu Nowar is nominated in the category of "Best Foreign Language Film", which mdw cinematography professor Wolfgang Thaler did the art work for.

About Patrick Vollrath

The following portrait was published in edition #4-2015 of the mdw magazine Kunsträume.


"At first, it was almost too much to take," says Vollrath on the feeling of having a film he's made heaped with so many honours, "but it’s also very motivating and makes it easier to believe in yourself." He says that he made the movie not to win awards, but because he found the story moving: "I just really wanted to tell this story, to work with the actors and actresses to create something that can touch people emotionally."

Becoming a Director

Alles wird gut isn't the first successful film by Patrick Vollrath, who graduated from the Filmakademie in 2015. His short films Die Jacke (The Jacket, 2014) and Ketchup Kid (2013) also won international awards. All this notwithstanding, it was only via a short detour that the filmmaker actually came to filmmaking. Following a course of training in Munich, his first jobs in film were as a editor. Then, in 2008, he began studying at Filmakademie Wien in under Michael Haneke in order to do what he'd really always wanted: make movies.

"After having seen Titanic at the cinema as a teenager, I wanted to become an actor. But then, everything kind of shifted towards directing. So I bought my first film camera with the money I'd earned from a summer job, and it was by making little films with it that I discovered editing," Vollrath recalls. Today, his films unite all of his abilities: he directs, writes the screenplays, and sometimes – as was the case in Alles wird gut – even edits the film himself; what's more, he loves working with actors and actresses.

Photo: Film still from "Everything will be Okay"

Genuineness

In the future, Patrick Vollrath hopes to continue working as a director and to be able to live from his art, with further developing his own cinematic handwriting being another major goal. An important element of said handwriting thus far has been the fact that he wants to make honest films: films that allow him to tell a story so as to be credible. "There are feelings that feel acted and feelings that feel genuine, and what I want are the genuine-feeling ones."

So even if a film contains a fantasy character like a dragon, he says, the feelings that human beings develop for this dragon and the world that’s created around it need to feel genuine. And this genuineness is something he'd also like to build into his next project, his first evening-filling work – if he can get it financed, that is. "And here, the fact that Alles wird gut was so successful might help," he says.

On the Future of Film

The young director has few worries about film's future. "Even if the media that show motion pictures are changing, human beings will probably always like seeing stories told in a filmic format," says Patrick Vollrath. He adds that, as a filmmaker, one has to take into account changes in the media world and think about what formats are receiving play, what viewers want to see. "But even if we’ll someday be watching films on our phones, in a pair of glasses, or on a wristwatch, people's need to be told stories will remain the same."

by Doris Piller

This portrait was published in Kunsträume edition #4-2015.