A Useful Ghost at Top Kino
- The file
- The practical details Claire checked before this went into the index.
- When
- 4 July 2026 – 13 July 2026
- Where
- Top Kino, Rahlgasse 1, 1060 Wien
- Price
- check website
A Thai man's wife dies of air pollution. Her soul takes up residence in his vacuum cleaner. It's the premise of Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke's debut feature, which screened in Un Certain Regard at Cannes 2025 — and it's not quirky. The film uses its absurdist conceit to explore grief, class, environmental destruction, and the way capitalism turns even love into a transaction. Boonbunchachoke comes from theatre and short film; this is his first feature and it reads like the work of someone who knows exactly what he's doing. The Thai-Singapore-French-German co-production is exactly the kind of film that wouldn't make it to most Vienna cinemas. Top Kino is one of the few places in the city with the programming instinct to show it. Screening in OmdU.
More in On Screen
WAX & GOLD at Österreichisches Filmmuseum
- When
- 5 October 2026
- Where
- 1st · Innere Stadt
Ruth Beckermann's WAX & GOLD follows the Vienna-born filmmaker to the Hilton Hotel in Addis Ababa—built by Emperor Haile Selassie as a monument to African modernization—where she unravels Ethiopia's layered history through archive footage, lobby conversations, and her own reflections as a European woman in Africa. The title refers to an Ethiopian literary technique of saying the opposite of what you mean, a metaphor Beckermann applies to the slipperiness of historical truth, colonial legacy, and the gap between image and reality. Beckermann is one of Austria's most decorated documentary filmmakers; Waldheims Walzer won the Berlinale Documentary Award and was Austria's Oscar entry. WAX & GOLD premiered as a Berlinale Special in February 2026 to strong reviews. This is a single screening at the Filmmuseum on October 5 at 20:30 in the Unsichtbares Kino—the intimate setting gives this essay film exactly the contemplative space it deserves.
Read the note →Subarnarekha at Österreichisches Filmmuseum
- When
- 13 September 2026 – 5 October 2026
- Where
- 1st · Innere Stadt
Ritwik Ghatak's *Subarnarekha* (1962) is the final film in his Partition trilogy. It follows a Hindu refugee from East Bengal trying to rebuild his life on the banks of the river Subarnarekha in West Bengal, only for history's violence to catch up with him again. It is one of the most devastating films ever made about displacement, and one of the least-seen: Ghatak was a contemporary of Satyajit Ray but worked in the shadows, his raw, operatic style too unruly for mainstream Indian cinema. This screening at the Österreichisches Filmmuseum is part of the RISE UP! Film – Form – Freedom retrospective (running through 21 October). The 13 September screening comes with an introduction by Elisabeth Streit — a rare chance to see a restored print of a film that shaped generations of South Asian filmmakers. The cinema is in the 1st district, in the Albertina building on Augustinerstraße. For anyone in Vienna who cares about the politics of belonging and the long aftermath of partition, the screening is worth the journey. Check the Filmmuseum website for ticket prices and exact screening times.
Read the note →Teresas Körper at Top Kino
- When
- 29 September 2026 – 8 October 2026
- Where
- 6th · Mariahilf
Teresa's Körper is the debut feature of Magdalena Chmielewska, a Polish director based in Vienna. The film is a portrait of her own mother, Teresa, who has lived for years with debilitating back pain, and the three women — mother and two daughters, including Chmielewska herself — who carry the weight of that suffering together. Chmielewska blends documentary observation with fictionalized memory and ritual, creating something that sits between genres. The film won Best Director at the Max Ophüls Prize and the Jury Special Prize for Screenplay at the Diagonale 2026. It's an intimate, body-centred piece of filmmaking — the kind that rarely gets a wide release but deserves one. Screening daily at Top Kino through October 8. The film is 76 minutes, in German with English subtitles.
Read the note →