FOOD & FOOTAGE: 27 Storeys – Alterlaa Forever

In the organizer's words:

FOOD & FOOTAGE - Independent films in combination with food

The spirit of Vienna's social utopias from the 1970s is still alive in the city's 23rd district, where the Alterlaa residential park rises up as Austria's largest social housing complex. Designed by architect Harry Glück, it embodies a vision of urban living in which comfort and community take center stage. The director takes a humorous look at the surprisingly happy residents of this "city within a city", people from the middle and working classes who lead a comfortable life: They enjoy sunbathing on the rooftop terrace pools, go shopping in the nearest stairwell or use services that make life outside the complex gray and unattractive. As a personal paean to the building in which the director herself grew up, the dark side of this life is also revealed through a colorful, nostalgic and disturbingly idealistic utopia.

Beyond the local context, the film encourages reflection on a cooperative housing model that evokes so many negative associations today and allows for comparisons with the housing situation in Poland, Austria and Germany, where the modernization of large buildings currently also evokes mixed feelings.

An important theme in the stories is the community of over-70s, the majority of Alterlaa's residents, who are thriving thanks to the complex's shopping, health, leisure and green space infrastructure. In this sense, Alterlaa becomes a living case study for "long-life design" and the possibilities of architecture to shape not only our spaces, but also the rhythm of human life.

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27 Storeys - Alterlaa Forever
by Bianca Gleissinger
82'02''
Austria, Germany, 2023
German with English subtitles

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Admission: 19:00
Dinner: 19:30
Film starts: 20:30 (until approx. 22:00)

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The event is organized in cooperation with the Wrocław Film Foundation and the MIASTOmovie project, thanks to the support of the Foundation for German-Polish Cooperation.