“What can we expect when we watch your movies at the cinema?” was the first question that mdw Magazine had for the Film Academy alumni Clara Stern and Peter Hengl. We quickly found out: before the audience can expect anything of their films, they’ll first have to fulfil their makers’ expectations—which are quite high indeed.

Joshua Jádi is a student at Film Academy Vienna. In the summer of 2020, he accompanied the Marš mira, an important annual event commemorating the war crimes in Srebrenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, together with a three-person film crew under the most unfavourable conditions.

Film Academy Vienna has a new professor of directing: Jessica Hausner joined us to discuss her approach to the filmic medium and the emphases that she envisions for her teaching. This spring will see the release of a book on this filmmaker’s oeuvre as part of a series published by Film Academy Vienna.

The core feature of training for the job as cinematographer is students’ freedom to learn in a playful manner. They need time and space so that they can grow artistically, dare to experiment, probe boundaries, explore visual languages, and pursue new avenues of creativity.

Malina Nwabuonwor and Alexander Reinberg study in Film Academy Vienna’s Screenplay Writing and Dramaturgy class. The two young authors spoke with mdw Magazine about how they got started writing, their takeaways from experiences studying abroad, and where they find inspiration for their work.