Opening Films on 28 April
07.04.2026 // A tried and tested tradition of Crossing Europe, once again the festival will open with four productions representative of the artistic and thematic diversity featured in the festival program. Moreover, there will be screenings of films from several program sections in the afternoon, prior to the official opening.
A few weeks after the siege of Sarajevo started, ten-year-old Mirela and more than 60 other children were brought to Italy in a bus convoy. Around thirty years later, director Massimiliano Battistella’s DOM (IT/BA 2025, world premiere: Giornate degli Autori / Venice 2025) accompanies her on a voyage into her past, in search of her own identity: It is her first return to Bosnia, as well as to the orphanage where she grew up until 1992.
The Tribute program section in 2026 is dedicated to the European cinema of the 1980s, opening with Chantal Akerman’s first and only musical comedy: In GOLDEN EIGHTIES (FR/BE/CH 1986; world premiere: Cannes Film Festival 1986), there develops a candy-bright banter of love under the neon lights of a department store’s consumer world; a criticism of love as a currency amid the fashion-, consumption- and hairdo-crazed eighties that is both shrill and bittersweet.
Gábor Holtai’s feature-length debut ITT ÉRZEM MAGAM OTTHON / FEELS LIKE HOME (HU/CZ 2025; world premiere: Sitges Film Festival 2025) opens this year’s Night Sight: Hauntingly staged, brilliantly performed, and shattering genre conventions with its clever plot twists, this psycho-thriller has become a hit with audiences in Hungary, maybe not least because it can be read as a snappy critique of autocracy. Also to be screened at SLASH ½ in Vienna on the weekend after Crossing Europe.
DONKEY DAYS
D: Rosanne Pel, NL/DE 2025 - Austrian Premiere
In DONKEY DAYS (NL/DE 2025, European Panorama Fiction; world premiere: Locarno Film Festival 2025), sisters Anna and Charlotte are constantly in their mother’s orbit, vying for her attention and tolerating insults about weight and looks in the process. Employing dark humor and anachronistic fantasy sequences, director and Crossing Europe award-winner Rosanne Pel draws a vivid picture of a dysfunctional family unit.DOM
D: Massimiliano Battistella, IT/BA 2025 - Austrian Premiere
A few weeks after the siege of Sarajevo started, ten-year-old Mirela and more than 60 other children were brought to Italy in a bus convoy. Around thirty years later, director Massimiliano Battistella’s DOM (IT/BA 2025, world premiere: Giornate degli Autori / Venice 2025) accompanies her on a voyage into her past, in search of her own identity: It is her first return to Bosnia, as well as to the orphanage where she grew up until 1992.
GOLDEN EIGHTIES
D: Chantal Akerman, FR/BE/CH 1986
The Tribute program section in 2026 is dedicated to the European cinema of the 1980s, opening with Chantal Akerman’s first and only musical comedy: In GOLDEN EIGHTIES (FR/BE/CH 1986; world premiere: Cannes Film Festival 1986), there develops a candy-bright banter of love under the neon lights of a department store’s consumer world; a criticism of love as a currency amid the fashion-, consumption- and hairdo-crazed eighties that is both shrill and bittersweet.
ITT ÉRZEM MAGAM OTTHON / FEELS LIKE HOME
D: Gábor Holtai, HU/CZ 2025 - Austrian Premiere
Gábor Holtai’s feature-length debut ITT ÉRZEM MAGAM OTTHON / FEELS LIKE HOME (HU/CZ 2025; world premiere: Sitges Film Festival 2025) opens this year’s Night Sight: Hauntingly staged, brilliantly performed, and shattering genre conventions with its clever plot twists, this psycho-thriller has become a hit with audiences in Hungary, maybe not least because it can be read as a snappy critique of autocracy. Also to be screened at SLASH ½ in Vienna on the weekend after Crossing Europe.
