(Selection)
“For one week, though, Linz feels lkie the slap-bang centre of Europe - at least in cinematic terms. This is when it plays host to "Crossing Europe", a lively, well-constructed film-festival inaugurated three years ago in the wake of Linz being named Europe`s cultural capital for 2009”
Neil Young, Tribune (GB)
“It is one of many extraordinary glimpses into unknown worlds at an extraordinary festival.”
Tatjana Berlakovich, 3sat “Kulturzeit” (A)
"Also thanks to the Crossing Europe Film Festival, the city of Linz is rapidly becoming one of the most important crossroads in the landscape of contemporary European art."
Jedrt Jez Furlan, RTV Slovenia (SLO)
“This is how one experienced the reality of ‘Crossing Europe’ beyond the screen as well. In Linz they explicitly offer space for extraordinary artistic formats with socio-political relevance and place local filmmaking in a European context that really means all of Europe and not just its western part. (
) This year’s »Crossing Europe« especially demonstrated how it works: telling grand stories in a subtle way.”
Grit Lemke, Junges Welt (GER)
“Until yesterday the ‘Crossing Europe’ film festival was again devoted to contemporary cinema. Exclusively first or second films by young European directors were screened in the competition. Dollhofer, the former director of the ‘Graz Diagonale’, successfully initiated the festival in 2004, and the numbers have been growing since then; this time there were 120 films from 29 European countries in the various sections. The number of visitors has risen in 2007 by at least 10 percent, which is gratifying, but also somewhat surprising, since the films are all very wilful, daring and sometimes cumbrous works. As different as the productions are, what they have in common is a strong socio-political ambition and a clear view of the present living situation of Europeans.”
Cornelis Hähnel, Spiegel Online (GER)
“With their regionally rooted but universal music, Attwenger provide a local hero paradigm for the programmatic strengths of the Linz film festival, which incidentally enjoys great popularity among guests due to its family atmosphere that other Austrian festivals lack. Having successfully established the festival with a focus on young cinema (and the potential for expansion for the Capital of Culture Year 2009), the director Christine Dollhofer can also afford attractive deviations, such as a (preview) premiere of Belle toujours, the magnificent new film by the 98-year-old Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira – in a correct cinephile double-feature with his inspiration, the Buñuel classic Belle de jour.”
Christoph Huber, Die Presse (A)
“Relaxed through the whole of Europe – The Linz Film Festival Crossing Europe in its fourth edition proved to be a success: more viewers, high quality, relaxed atmosphere.”
Pia Feichtenschlager, Salzburger Nachrichten (A)
“This year again, Crossing Europe was a questioning, sometimes hard to consume, but never arbitrary cinema. (
) So one can also look forward to Linz 2008 with pleasure and follow the development of exciting, European cinema in a relaxed congenial atmosphere from the 22nd to the 27th again.”
Marius M. Mrkvicka, Linz09.info (A)
“It can happen that quickly that a young film festival becomes a fixed feature in the annual cineast calendar: Crossing Europe had hardly opened its doors for only the fourth time in the Linz Citykino, Moviemento, the OK Center, and the old familiar KAPU, and the usual suspects were already arriving – from England, Sofia, all the way to Vienna.”
Julia Pühringer, Kurier.at (A)
“(
) the festival, which again this year was able to present a remarkable number of works well worth seeing, (
). (
) At the conclusion of the fourth edition of the festival, which has noticeably won over, not least of all, the European filmmakers who travelled to Linz, another slight increase in the number of visitors had also been registered.”
Isabella Reicher, Der Standard (A)
