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© 2026 The Couch Critic
Browse 92 movies from Filmakademie Wien
On the 3rd of October a twenty-four-year-old student from Vienna kills his lover and chops up her corpse. Her torso is found in a dumpster, other body parts and the head are missing. There is no clue about the motive of the murder. A silent chronology of the events.
Jul 2016
On her ninth birthday, Nelly locks out her mother of their family home while she keeps posting Instagram stories that become more and more worrying.
Jan 2023
17-year-old Coco wants to become famous. She goes to each audition, but is rejected time and again. On her YouTube channel, she creates a fictional world in which everything is perfect and her self-confidence is based on likes and followers.
Jan 2017
A young couple in love spontaneously get involved in an underground play in a dark cellar that is billed as "particularly bad". As expected, the play begins "artistically valuable" - the audience is rather bored, some filming along with amusement. However, the mood changes abruptly when Manfred Amour, the play's car, enters the cellar.
Mar 2017
A short documentary about Chun, who lives in Vienna.
Jan 2020
A troubled young woman confronts her past at a rehabilitation centre. She finds solace in horse therapy but her growing intimacy with her therapist derails her progress and threatens her healing journey.
Feb 2025
Luisa returns to her parents' home when her father becomes bedridden. She's expected to help her mother deal with the drudgery of caring for him, but their relationship is tense and the physical contact with the man proves to be unpleasant for her. In quiet moments she remembers scenes from her childhood Long repressed and forgotten memories force their way back into the present, until a final realization brings a family secret to light.
Apr 2009
Poetic images of nature in the opening credits lead us on the wrong track. The motorcyclist has been lying under his machine for a long time. At the moment of death, memories emerge. Flashbacks to family history, speechlessness in the face of death in harsh cuts.
Mar 2004
The hopelessly romantic Lisa takes desperate measures to win her former lover back, Alf. But the fact that Alf already has a new girl at his side and that Lisa needs to bring her alcoholic father to an antivaricose-campaign photo shooting without letting him know, is not particularly helping.
Nov 2015
Andi shares a deserted building with a group of fellow-squatters he considers his family. One day his sister turns up unexpectedly with her small son Levi, seeking refuge from her abusive boyfriend; she has nowhere else to turn. So Andi suddenly finds himself in the role of uncle, the squat is transformed into an alternative kindergarten, and the estranged pair become the siblings they once were.
Aug 2021
The dress is too lavish and the toilet cubicle too small for the bride to fit in. The ballroom is jam-packed and the mood is alarmingly good. Something is about to burst: the groom’s delusion of grandeur? The pregnant belly of deaf Betti? Her step-father’s patience? Or the wine-filled bladder of his ex-wife?
Sep 2020
The actor Max meets the student director Stefan for a rehearsal. When Max and Stefan start to work on the script, however, the difficulties begin on page five. When Max receives a message from his agent, the situation takes a turn for the worse. In the end, despite good and bad news, there can only be insults, right?
Apr 2022
When the young and shy Louanne moves to Vienna, hungry for life, a kind of friendship, she has never known, develops with her confident flatmate Thaïs.
Jun 2024
A complicated marriage: She has a tumor, he is gay, both of them are keeping it a secret. When their only daughter moves out, he is ready to come out. But that is not going to happen. He arranges a date for a bizarre role-play and she is spying on him, firmly believing that he is having an affair with a younger woman. The chase is on.
It is bleak. There is this gray building on a rainy day, where anyone´s windows is kept closed. Overlooking the courtyard a boy is sitting on his windowsill. He is playing with a mirrored-glass marble. It is enjoyable to watch, as well as for this other child, standing at its opened window across the courtyard. The boy spins his marble again and again and the other childs interest for the marble is growing minute by minute. Suddenly something happens... It is a short film about observing a moment and following its interests.
Jan 2008
Mrs. Pospisil lives alone in an apartment in an old building in Vienna. The elderly lady's increasing forgetfulness prompts her son to suggest that she move into a nursing home. But then suddenly a crack opens up in one of the walls of her apartment, through which something enters Mrs. Pospisil's world that will change her life forever. Paul Ertl's highly efficient and picture-perfect The Crack is a psychologically underpinned mid-length horror miniature that transforms into a utopia as casual as it is original as it is gently disturbing, and is ultimately also a powerful plea for the autonomy of older people.
Sep 2022
Nov 2025
The mentally unstable switchman Kramer, a devoted servant of the fatherland, is waiting for a train.
Jan 1997
A movie about the possibility to be happy—or about the impossibility of the same. A young man interviews people on the street. He asks them about the substance of their lives in order to find answers for himself, but he cannot find any. Then, a young woman: after a couple of disappointments, she finds the happy side of life—she finds something like love. They meet each other…
May 1999
The film follows two days in the life of a former child star who rose to fame nearly 20 years ago in a major sci-fi blockbuster. Overwhelmed by media attention and school issues, he quit acting. Now, he's trying to redefine himself amidst hate comments, public recognition, journalists, and constant comparisons to a colleague from the film set.
Oct 2023