{"id":135,"date":"2016-11-22T10:28:14","date_gmt":"2016-11-22T09:28:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/?p=135"},"modified":"2017-12-11T14:42:01","modified_gmt":"2017-12-11T13:42:01","slug":"ein-gemeinsamer-traum-von-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/2016\/11\/22\/ein-gemeinsamer-traum-von-film\/?lang=en","title":{"rendered":"A Common Dream of Film"},"content":{"rendered":"Together with his colleagues from coop99, Film Academy graduate Antonin Svoboda is among Austria\u2019s most successful producers and directors.<\/strong><\/p>\n
\"Forever
Forever Never Anywhere \u00a9coop99<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 1999, the director, author, and producer Antonin Svoboda founded coop99 Filmproduktion together with his mdw classmates Barbara Albert, Martin Gschlacht, and Jessica Hausner. Since then, this production company has become a successful fixture in the world of Austrian film and cinema, and Antonin Svoboda can look back on a long list of successful films as a producer, works including Hupert Sauper\u2019s Oscar-nominated film Darwin\u2019s Nightmare<\/em> and the recently coproduced film Toni Erdmann<\/em>, which received awards including the renowned critics\u2019 prize FIPRESCI for Best Film in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival and then the FIPRESCI Grand Prix for the year\u2019s best film, and is also being submitted by Germany to the Best Foreign Film competition at the 2017 Oscars.<\/p>\n

\"Antonin
Antonin Svoboda \u00a9Eva Kees<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The now 47-year-old-Viennese is successful as a director, as well (Immer nie am Meer, Der Fall Wilhelm Reich<\/em>, et al.). A key feature of coop99 is that all founders are simultaneously general managers and producers, and that frees up time for artistic projects, since \u201cafter all these years, we know each other and know who has what qualities,\u201d says Svoboda. Even during their studies at the Film Academy,\u00a0the founders of coop99 already worked together a lot and traded thoughts about the films they\u2019d seen or made themselves\u2014so their \u201c common dream of film\u201d came quite naturally: \u201cWe came together not for business reasons, but for substantive, film-related ones. Austria just didn\u2019t have a production company back then that would\u2019ve supported the films we wanted to make.\u201d<\/p>\n

Independence and Openness<\/strong><\/p>\n

Today, the production atmosphere in Austria is bit better: \u201cThere\u2019s been some improvement in terms of awareness and in financing,\u201d says Svoboda. But subsidies and support, he says, are still far too dependent on political decision-makers. In the interest of independence and openness, coop99 began cooperating with international partners quite early on. But while that was originally for economic reasons, the motivation for doing so is now primarily artistic: \u201cIn film, it\u2019s not just about regional qualities, but also about understanding the world and its relationships, and about exchange and challenging oneself at the international level.\u201c<\/p>\n

Memories<\/strong><\/p>\n

Not all of his memories from his Film Academy days are rosy; sometimes, insufficient openness to the outside and a school-likesystem posed difficulties for the young creatives studying there. But Antonin Svoboda\u2019s most vivid memories are of the teamwork among the students\u2014from which, the fruitful collaboration at coop99 ultimately went forth\u2014as well as the important input of individual professors. \u201cBirgit Flos and Werner Herzog were very important people for us, because alongside wanting to \u2018learn the equipment\u2019, we were hungry for artistic and intellectual discourse and experience from actual practice.\u201c<\/p>\n

Love<\/strong><\/p>\n

Antonin Svoboda\u2019s love of filmmaking, which was probably the reason he went to train at the Film Academy, has remained with him to this day. And asked as to the future of the cinema as such, Svoboda expresses his hope that its special quality will still be valued for a long time to come\u2014namely as a \u201cplace of feelings, of growth, and of yearning\u201d. coop99 is continuing its work towards these things, \u201cand we support everything that keeps this form of encounter alive,\u201d he says. Svoboda doesn\u2019t necessarily advise young producers to found their own companies\u2014and if they do, he says, it should be as part of a team and with a good overall plan. And for everybody, including young directors, he has a tip that speaks to what\u2019s probably most decisive in the field of art: \u201cDo what you\u00a0do with love and determination!\u201d","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Together with his colleagues from coop99, Film Academy graduate Antonin Svoboda is among Austria\u2019s most successful producers and directors. In 1999, the director, author, and producer Antonin Svoboda founded coop99 Filmproduktion together with his mdw classmates Barbara Albert, Martin Gschlacht, and Jessica Hausner. Since then, this production company has become a successful fixture in the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":137,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[60,360,49,363,361,366,48,94,47,362,365,364,92,93,367],"class_list":["post-135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film","tag-2016-4","tag-antonin-svoboda","tag-austrian-film","tag-barbara-albert","tag-coop99","tag-darwins-nightmare","tag-directing","tag-director","tag-film-production","tag-immer-nie-am-meer","tag-jessica-hausner","tag-martin-gschlacht","tag-regie","tag-regisseur","tag-toni-erdmann"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":383,"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions\/383"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}