Michael Haneke

Michael Haneke's camera introspects in this provocative study of emotional disconnection in the age of mass-media saturation. The result is a coolly postmodern, metacinematic labyrinth in which the boundaries between actual and mediated violence become terrifyingly indistinguishable. — Benny, 14, is a teenager whose well-to-do parents are absent most of the time. He fills this void by immersing himself in the world of video. Soon, the pictures he feeds on are overshadowing his sense of reality until Benny loses his mind. He films himself committing an unspeakable act of violence. — FIPRRESCI Prize | European Film Awards | 1993

An iconic post-apocalyptic thriller made by Haneke in 2003 but captures something of the existential despair of the decades that followed. Shall we call it prophetic? Isabelle Huppert stars, the finale is riveting, the film is divisive - as has usually been the case for this great director. — After a global cataclysm, Anne and her family set off for a safe haven in their cottage. But when they get there, the house is already occupied by other survivors. Their hopes for safety are immediately dashed by a violent tragedy. Accompanied by a wild young boy, the family finally arrives at a train station with the prospect of escape. — Official Selection | Cannes Film Festival | 2003 Official Selection | Toronto Film Festival | 2003

This absurd Kafkaesque nightmare finds its ideal cinematic adaptation in the hands of Michael Haneke, who pulls us into a maelstrom of endless bureaucratic dystopia, with the protagonists of "Funny Games", just before the release of the latter. — A land surveyor is summoned to a remote village by the local government, housed in ‘the castle’. Upon his arrival, he is unable to persuade the locals of his legitimacy and finds himself sucked into a spiral of provincial bureaucracy and petty social rivalries that soon becomes a surreal nightmare.

In his third film, Haneke explores the arbitrariness of the existence of 71 seemingly unconnected individuals (including 12-year-old Sebastian Stan) at 71 moments, underscoring the vision of a dehumanized world in which emotional alienation can only be broken by the shock of sudden violence. — 1993 Christmas’ eve. A 19-year-old student kills several people—all of whom were complete strangers—for no apparent reason. What brought the victims and their killer together? Starting with the TV newscasts of the event, the lives of those randomly involved in this act of violence are followed. — Best Film | Chicago Film Festival | 1994

20 years later, the generation of post-war hope has reached its own dead end. In the most important of Michael Haneke's early works, you can see all the motifs of the (great) up-and-coming filmmaker of the time spread across the (small) screen. — In the second part of Haneke's great diptych, we meet the once teenage characters again, 15 years later. Now they are the ones facing the demands of an adult life that seems unbearable. All are surrounded by a form of despair. There is a way out.

How do you translate a personal literary essay into a compelling visual version? Michael Haneke in one of his early television works adapts Ingeborg Bachmann on the moral judgment of a war photographer. Rare and until recently virtually unseen. — When a famous photographer turns 50, she decides to leave her hectic life in Paris behind and reinvent herself by returning to the idyllic life of the small town she grew up in. She may have achieved international fame, but her personal life is lonely. As she reminisces about her childhood, she reunites with her father and discovers, through a series of flashbacks, exactly what she has lost.

In the most heartbreaking moment of his filmography, Michael Haneke directs Emmanuelle Riva and Jean-Louis Trintignant with painful intimacy in a story about the sweeping power of everlasting love, standing before its only obstacle, death. Palme d'Or and Oscar for Best International Film. — Georges and Anne are an octogenarian couple. They are cultivated, retired music teachers. Their daughter, also a musician, lives in Britain with her family. One day, Anne has a stroke, and the couple's bond of love is severely tested. — Best Foreign Language Film | Oscars | 2013 Palme d'Or | Cannes Film Festival | 2012 Best Actress (Emmanuelle Riva) | BAFTA Awards | 2013 Best European Director | European Film Awards | 2013 Best Foreign Language Film | Golden Globes | 2013 FIPRESCI Prize | San Sebastian Film Festival | 2012

The film that shocked the Cannes Film Festival and cinemas and made Haneke's name internationally renowned is not only one of the most infamous and controversial creations in cinema history, but also changed forever the way violence is portrayed on the big screen. — A middle-class couple escapes with their young son to the country for a carefree weekend. But two young men, who have murder as a hobby, will turn their stay into a nightmare. Holding them hostage, they will subject them to sadistic ordeals. — Official Selection - International Competition | Cannes Film Festival | 1997

A clinically precise and masterfully methodical record of the fears and guilt of the bourgeoisie, the film that won Michael Haneke the 2005 Cannes Director's Prize is for many the best and certainly the most viewer-friendly of his creations. Watch out for the credits. — A TV book show host receives packages containing videotapes of scenes from his family life and sketches with strange illustrations. The uncomfortable feeling of being watched gradually turns into a threat. — Best Director | Cannes Film Festival | 2005 FIPRESCI Prize | Cannes Film Festival | 2005 Best European Film | European Film Awards | 2005 Best European Directori | European Film Awards | 2005 Best European Actor (Daniel Auteuil) | European Film Awards | 2005

Michael Haneke’s chilling portrait of bourgeois anomie finds him fully in command of his style, observing with clinical detachment the spiritual emptiness of consumer culture—and the horror that lurks beneath its placid surfaces. — Georg, his wife Anna and their daughter Eva lead a seemingly quiet middle-class life, but when Eva pretends she has become blind, something odd rises to the surface. During the next three years, the family alienates themselves from the world and each other until, suddenly, their lives self-destruct. — Ernest Artaria Award | Locarno Film Festival | 1989

Michael Haneke's magnum opus is a multidimensional study on the causes and birth of fascism, a film that travels into the past to highlight urgent and timelessly topical concerns about violence and all forms of terrorism, a pure and undisputed masterpiece. — Germany, just before the First World War. A series of unexplained events disrupt the daily social life of a Protestant village, centred on a group of young children. — Nomination for Best Foreign Language Film | Oscars | 2010 Nomination for Best Cinematography | Oscars | 2010 Golden Palm | Cannes Film Festival | 2009 Best Foreign Language Film | Golden Globes | 2010 FIPRESCI Prize | San Sebastian Film Festival | 2009

The most important of Michael Haneke's early works is a sweeping social drama about the deadlock of the first post-war generation. In the first part, the generation gap is captured through a gritty coming-of-age story a la Haneke. — Autumn 1959 in Austria. Five young people between the ages of 17 and 18 are trying to make a life for themselves in the repressive atmosphere of their town. But all of them are tormented for different reasons: one person has a bourgeois family and has nothing to miss, but the parents no longer speak to each other. A young girl gets pregnant by a boy she doesn't love. Another young student has an affair with his teacher's wife.

In one of his least known works for Austrian television, Michael Haneke asks what it means to live for duty in an increasingly technocratic world that recognizes nothing in anyone. Literary adaptation-must for fans of the great director. — In post-war Vienna, soldier Andreas Poom has lost a leg for his emperor, but recognition from his country never comes. As a reward, he receives a leave of absence and a musical instrument so he can make a living playing it in the courtyards of Vienna. Throughout his life he will always be honest, always obedient - but to what end? When his realization and revolution comes, will there still be time for him?

Contemporary and almost prophetic, the masterful Michael Haneke regards our brave, new and globalized world as a multicultural Babel on the verge of collapse, where people, societies, cultures, and languages entropically seek connection and communication. — A series of stories and characters linked through their relationship with contemporary Europe: a continent of refugees, racism and alienation, but also hope for a better future. An actress auditioning for a movie takes a walk with her partner’s brother, a war correspondent in Yugoslavia. Later, the brother throws trash at a homeless person and a second-generation Malian immigrant intervenes. — Official Selection | Cannes Film Festival | 2000 Prize of the Ecumenical Jury | Cannes Film Festival | 2000

In this true masterpiece of a film, made even more memorable by the collaboration between director Haneke and Isabelle Huppert, emotional detachment, the oppression of impulse and the painful realization of another's need play off each other, in an unforgettable artistic and revelatory event. — A middle-aged piano teacher works at a Vienna conservatory and lives with her cantankerous, elderly mother; her father resided in psychiatric asylums for years. The teacher is deeply solitary and her sexual oppression is expressed through sadomasochistic and voyeuristic behaviors, as well as self-harm. When a younger student expresses interest in her, the teacher consents, but the relationship soon goes to extremes. — Grand Prize of the Jury | Cannes Film Festival | 2001 Best Actress (Isabelle Huppert) | Cannes Film Festival | 2001 Best Actor (Benoît Magimel) | Cannes Film Festival | 2001

Haneke, the constant provocateur, has some fun with the demise of the traditional upper-class family as we know it, using murder as the only point of connection in the unbridgeable generation gap, in a perversely ironic best-of that winks at the whole of his oeuvre. — There’s nothing "happy" about the life of this family. The eldest daughter has taken over the family business from her father because of his advanced age. She has to deal with the potentially catastrophic consequences of a work accident at one of the company's construction sites. At the same time, her brother takes custody of his teenage daughter after the mysterious poisoning of his ex-wife. He too is hiding secrets, which could endanger his second marriage. — Official Selection | Cannes Film Festival | 2017