Talent LAB #3

A box of negatives opens like a wound: the photographer Peter discovers his great-great-uncle Hans’s archive of self-portraits and uncovers a family legacy of silence and guilt. As he seeks to make things right, his own traumatic family history comes more and more into focus.

Peter Pflügler, born 1987, grew up in a small village in Lower Austria. He studied photography in The Hague, where he now lives. His work focuses on the transformative power of family secrets. Through photography, text and moving images, he explores the role of silence in the transmission of trauma. When we trace our family tree of sorrow, where do its roots begin?

© Otmar Pollmann

Christoph Rohner, born in Bregenz, is a filmmaker and artist. After completing his degree in painting at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, his focus increasingly shifted towards film. Since then, he has developed and produced short films, music videos and other projects. The short film „The Little Death“ (2020), which he produced, received several awards. He is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Film Production at the Film Academy Vienna. For his graduation project, he is producing the documentary „Wo der Pfeffer wächst“ about sustainable agriculture in Tanzania. He has also gained experience on national and international fiction and documentary productions, working as a unit manager, location manager and in production coordination.

© Volker Schmidt

After separating from her first love, Magdalena, 35, finds her life slowly falling apart. Alongside her true passion for typography, she drifts from one precarious job to the next and stumbles through a series of tragicomic encounters, while her body sends out warning signs. Close friendships offer genuine support, yet no one can take away her deep sense of uncertainty. Across three chapters – Berlin, Tyrol, Portugal – we follow Magdalena’s struggle to remain courageous as a woman in regressive times.

Born in 1992 and raised in Tyrol, Austria, Sophie studied Philosophy in Vienna and Berlin, graduating with a Master’s degree. She has worked as an artistic assistant and in film production, including at Komplizen Film and Flaneur Films. Her short documentary „FRAUENFRAGMENTE: Gini und Resi“ received the Award for Best Short Documentary at Diagonale 2021. Her latest short fiction film, „Nina in einer Reihe Begegnungen“, has been screened at numerous international festivals, including IndieLisboa, Kasseler Dokfest and Diagonale. She studied Narrative Film under Thomas Arslan at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK Berlin), where she also worked as a tutor until 2025.

© Lino Strässer

Born in Paris in 1992, Camille studied German language and literature, intercultural mediation, and translation in Paris and Berlin. In 2015, she moved to Vienna, where she completed internships at the Volkstheater and the Schauspielhaus Wien. She has been working since 2017 in distribution, international sales and production. From 2021 to May 2026, she worked at Panama Film as a junior and line producer—most recently on „White Snail“ by Elsa Kremser and Levin Peter, as well as on „Everytime“ by Sandra Wollner. At the same time, she independently produced „Teresa’s Body“ by Magdalena Chmielewska. She completed the La Fémis program “Expertiser un scénario,” the EAVE Marketing Workshop, the International Screen Institute’s “Business and Legal Affairs” program, and the ZFF Academy 2026.

© Elsa Okazaki

A group of performers comes together to collaboratively create a musical-like performance piece. While navigating identity crises, romantic entanglements and unmet expectations the fiction of the performance gradually blurs with the “reality” of rehearsals.

Between small everyday moments and (melo)dramatic gestures, the film traces both the intimate and practical dimensions of a rehearsal process: warm-ups, choreographies, costume fittings, secret crushes, shared lunch breaks, and moments of vulnerability and exhaustion. As group dynamics slowly begin to surface, the rehearsal space condenses into a microcosm in which questions of collective labor, queer desire, and care are continuously renegotiated.

The characters move along thresholds—between onstage and offstage, self and role, visibility and invisibility. As expectations build toward what might become a final premiere, the film lingers with fragments, repetitions, and pauses, that shape rehearsal as a space of collective experimentation and failure.

Lilith Kraxner (she/her), *1995, is a Vienna based artist and filmmaker. After two years at the Friedl Kubelka School for Independent Film she completed her studies in 2025 at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in the Art and Time | Video class of Dorit Margreiter Choy. Lilith works with observations of everyday life, which she incorporates into film and text-based works. Her film practice has been shaped by a longtime collaboration with Milena Czernovsky, with whom she worked on script, editing, production design and directing of their two feature films, „Beatrix“ (2021, independently produced) and „bluish“ (2024, Panama Film). Lilith is a member of kuntsverein and is interested in gossip, awkwardness, and collective practices.

© Daniel Hill / Bildrecht

Saskia Arth, *1994 in Vienna, began her studies in theatre, film and media studies after several years of dance training, and went on to study Production at the Vienna Film Academy. During her studies, she produced short films including „Lullaby“ (dir. Magdalena Chmielewska), „Mein Hosenschlitz ist offen. Wie mein Herz“ (dir. Marie Luise Lehner), and the feature „Wer wir einmal sein wollten“ (dir. Özgür Anil). Her films won awards at the Max Ophüls Film Festival and screened at Karlovy Vary, Palm Springs, Vienna Shorts and Diagonale. From 2022 to 2025, she was production coordinator at Panama Film. She currently develops and produces fiction and documentary projects, including „Performing Rehearsal“ (dir. Lilith Kraxner), selected for the 2026 Talent LAB.

© Johanna Daser

Winter 1918. In a remote Austrian village, the women have created an order of their own during the war. Work, supplies, and decisions are shared, and the closeness between Maria and Anna has found its place within it. But then the men come home. Wounded, changed, and expecting to reclaim their former place. With them come old claims and expectations, and the question of how much of this new order can survive.

Jasmin Hagendorfer is a Vienna-based filmmaker, producer, artist, and curator. Her work moves between art film, documentary, and experimental forms, engaging with queer-feminist perspectives, the body, desire, and political questions. Her short films and video works, including „Musings of a Mechatronic Mistress“, „SLUGFEST“, and „FUDLIAKS! Tear The Sexes Apart!“, have been screened internationally at film and media festivals and have received several awards. Her performance work has been presented at venues including Volksbühne Berlin, and she has spoken at TEDxVienna and HOPE Hackers On Planet Earth in New York. She also curates film programmes and publishes on feminist and cultural-political topics.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasmin_Hagendorfer

© Offerus Ablinger

Viktoria Klammerth, born in 1989 in Carinthia, has been active in film and cultural industries for many years. After completing her degree in law, she gained extensive experience in the realisation of cultural projects as well as in various film productions. She gained valuable insight into the Austrian film industry, amongst other things, on the set of Hans Steinbichler’s “Ein ganzes Leben”. On international productions including “Cliffhanger 2”, “DOTJ 2”, “John Wick: Ballerina” and “Tyler Rake: Extraction 2”, she was responsible for key processes within the production and locations departments. Alongside her work in film, she collaborates with cultural institutions such as the Viennale, Diagonale and steirischer herbst. Her professional career is shaped by international exchange, interdisciplinary practice and a strong connection between film, cultural production and project development.

© Fabian Sorger

Sandra Theuermann was born in 1988 and raised in Carinthia. She lives and works in Vienna. Currently, she is developing the feature film “Tage ohne Ordnung” with director Jasmin Hagendorfer as part of the Talent LAB. With a background in ethnology, she is interested, alongside production, in the interplay between social change, cultural practices and traditional structures. After several years as an editor and in editorial project management, she has also been working in film production, story development and dramaturgy since 2024. Her projects to date include short films and essay films as well as two documentaries at different stages of production – one in post-production and the other in development. During her studies in literature, she developed an approach to material, its structuring and its translation into other (media) forms.

© private

Two families, two sides of the same street: One is about to return to its homeland, while the other is deeply rooted in Austria. When the sixteen-year-old daughter of the first family secretly becomes pregnant, both families are thrown into a crisis in which everyone believes they are doing the right thing while unintentionally changing each other’s future forever.

Reza Rasouli is an Iranian filmmaker, director, and screenwriter who has lived in Vienna since 2019. He studied directing at the Vienna Film Academy, where he earned his bachelor’s degree and is currently working on his master’s in directing. His short films have been screened at international festivals, including Clermont-Ferrand, Tribeca Festival, Palm Springs ShortFest, and Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia. „Found & Lost“ won the Student Visionary Award at the Tribeca Festival, and „Night of Passage“ received several awards, including the Austrian Film Prize in the Best Short Film category.

https://www.rezarasouli.at/

© Konstantin Johann

Mo Harawe is an Austrian-Somalian filmmaker. He has lived in Vienna since 2009 and studied Visual Communication and Film at the Kassel Art Academy. His films have screened at numerous international film festivals. In 2026, Harawe participated in the Creative Producer Indaba (CPI) organized by the Realness Institute. In 2025, he co-founded Donkey Film GmbH in Berlin and Donkey Studio GmbH in Vienna, together with Alexander von Piechowski.

© Bernhard Holub

Alexander von Piechowski, born in 1990, works as a producer, dramaturg, and editor. He holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration and studied Cultural Semiotics (M.A.) at the University of Potsdam. He lives in Berlin, where he, in addition to his work as a producer, volunteers as the executive director of the internationally oriented, self-organized film school filmArche e.V. In 2025, he co-founded Donkey Film GmbH in Berlin and Donkey Studio GmbH in Vienna, together with Mo Harawe.

© Leon Stanislawski