Zwischen den Ländern

Österreichisch-tschechische Grenzräume im österreichischen Film nach 1989

Abstract

The article examines Austrian films produced since 1989 in the Austrian-Czech border region, opening up different perspectives on this space. The analysis spanning 35 years shows that the thematic choices are shaped both by political and social transformations and discourses, as well as by longstanding perceptions of the border region. The dominant portrayal since the nineteenth century – as a marginal and unspoiled natural landscape – persists in film productions after 1989, reinforced by decades of isolation during the Iron Curtain era. This is reflected above all in the particular significance accorded to landscape in the respective films. Although staged in different ways, landscape not only intensifies the atmosphere of the films but also shapes their plots in a fundamental way. The approach found in more recent cultural studies scholarship – viewing "borderscapes" as productive spaces of cultural entanglement – can only be identified to a limited extent in these films. It is only in more recent productions that established cultural imaginaries begin to dissolve.