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Händl Klaus

Director
Händl Klaus, born in 1969 in Rum, Tyrol, is a versatile Austrian artist active as a writer, filmmaker, and performer. His feature film debut, "März" (March, 2008), was awarded the Silver Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival. His subsequent film, "Kater" (Tomcat, 2016), also gained international recognition, receiving the Teddy Award at the Berlinale. In addition to his directing work, Händl Klaus is a celebrated author of theater and prose, whose body of work was honored with the Grand Austrian State Prize in 2024. He also appears as an actor, for instance in productions by Michael Haneke or Christian Petzold.

Films

Tomcat

Tomcat

By Händl Klaus

2016 | 118 min | Drama

In his Teddy Award-winning drama, Klaus Händl asks: what happens when a relationship is destroyed from within?

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12 Years

12 Years

2010 | 3 min | Shorts

For twelve years she ignored sneers and mockery and stood up for her relationship. But that was probably a mistake. Now her husband is leaving her for another. She draws a painful résumé of their time together, in which she ignored hostility and ridicule and committed herself to their relationship. At first he is considerate, but becomes more and more cynical towards her. "With an animation performance that is second to none, director Daniel Nocke convinces in this short film as well as with a ...

Fight

Fight

2024 | 74 min | Documentary

FIGHT follows 16-year-old Karine in rural Armenia, where she cares for her father’s dogs who were injured in brutal dogfights. Her dream is to become a veterinarian. This dream clashes with her family’s traditional expectations. Her father expects a different, more “feminine” future for his daughter, yet he was the one who introduced her to this trade, and is glad that she oversees the care and medical treatment of the animals; this creates a quiet but palpable tension. The film juxtaposes everyday ...

Thirst for Life

Thirst for Life

2015 | 16 min | Drama

A bi-racial couple loses a baby in the fifth month of the pregnancy after getting attacked by a group of racists. They go through dark times but fight with their endless love to become happy again. Yaya, a pregnant white woman, has been attacked by two men. Her Black friend Emeka had to witness everything without being able to help. A third man pushed him to the ground and degraded him. Yaya loses the unborn. She falls into a pit of self-destruction and doubt. Will Emeka be able to catch her and ...

Last Exit Gran Canaria

Last Exit Gran Canaria

2025 | 82 min | Queer

In this daring autofictional documentary, filmmaker Tim Lienhard, raised in a Catholic family in southern Germany, traces his late-in-life transformation into a provocatively performative drag persona. Now 64, he reflects on identity, sexuality, aging, and self-esteem with shameless openness and humor. His journey takes him from Berlin to the Torremolinos Porn Festival and Pride Week in Gran Canaria, where he meets OnlyFans creators, partygoers, and peers who share their stories of desire and liberation. What ...

Kumru

Kumru

2020 | 43 min | Drama

In a remote mountain village where the main form of communication is an ancient whistled language, lives a 12-year-old boy who does not know how to speak the language. Berat is an outsider, but his connection to a mysterious hybrid creature – half sheep, half dog – leads him on an unusual journey. The sick creature urgently needs medicine, and Berat does everything he can to get it. At the same time, the hybrid teaches him another, equally fascinating form of communication that creates a magical ...

The Pig Slaughtering

The Pig Slaughtering

2010 | 52 min | Documentary

"This doc is an important contribution in a time when many people think of meat only as an industrial, supermarket product wrapped in plastic." (Sarah Wiener) On a winter morning, a group of old men gather in a little village to slaughter a pig the traditional way and process some sausages. The film shows the itinerary from the living animal to the edible product in the course of a single day. Director Nikias Chryssos went to a southern German rural area to document an original artisanal procedure, ...

Loverfilm

Loverfilm

1997 | 22 min | Icons & Media Art

"The plots of this film are based on true events. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is not only intentional, but unavoidable. - The viewer also bears responsibility for the images that become public." (Michael Brynntrup) "Noted German experimental filmmaker Michael Brynntrup tantalizes us with his diaristic account of his many lovers. What seems at first to be an extended exercise in ego, gradually becomes a powerful social record of gay life in the years spanning gay liberation and the ...

Points of Light

Points of Light

2024 | 27 min | Documentary

Not long ago, countless fireflies swarmed through fields and backyards on summer nights. Today in Iowa, a place known for its uniform landscape and monocultures of corn, fireflies are increasingly rare to find: points of light that blink off just as quickly as they light up in the dark. In POINTS OF LIGHT, filmmaker Annika Juliane Schilling sets out to search for these magical-seeming insects and the reasons for their disappearance. She takes a look at farm work and front lawns, as patterns of ...

Archive of the Future

Archive of the Future

2024 | 91 min | Documentary

Behind the imposing walls of the Natural History Museum in Vienna lies a world that few get to see. While visitors stroll through the magnificent exhibition halls, scientists work in the background to preserve millions of exhibits. Taxidermists attach delicate butterflies to chipboard, beetles are carefully archived, and a stuffed giraffe is maneuvered through narrow corridors. Every artifact tells a story, every detail contributes to the preservation of our knowledge. With calm powers of observation, ...