Edition 23: 2–10 August, 2024

EFA SHORTS

The Best City Is No City At All

Die beste Stadt ist keine Stadt

Austria
2019 — 15' / Color

1

Synopsis

A young man sitting in a rusted hangar and playing the guitar. An abandoned wooden church that is no longer needed and has been moved to the outskirts of the growing city as a temporary cultural use. Kindergarten children who talk in a circle of chairs what they are not doing at the moment. In his essay film “The best city is not a city”, Christoph Schwarz mixes multiple perspectives on Vienna's largest urban expansion area. What they have in common is sentimental criticism of growth and a romantic refusal to progress in the face of the impending ecological collapse, which seems more credible to us than any happy ending. (Daniel Bleninger)

Official Trailer

Director Biography

Born in 1981, Christoph Schwarz lives in Vienna/Austria. He graduated from the University of Applied Arts Vienna with a diploma in Media Arts in 2006. His projects mainly emerge out of self-involved set-ups, in which he blends fact and fiction into humorous narratives that can find their respective formal shape in performance, installations and short film, and have been shown at exhibitions and film festivals internationally.

Director

Christoph Schwarz

Producer

Christoph Schwarz

Cinematographer

Christoph Schwarz

Editor

Christoph Schwarz

Sound

Matthias Peyker