(Selection)
One must imagine the Linz Crossing Europe Film Festival as a centerpiece of the on-going EU Capital of Culture year. For the sixth time festival director Christine Dollhofer has compiled gems of the European auteur films. [...] All of this (and more) in an amazingly relaxed atmosphere: Crossing Europe is, again this year, rewarding.
Stefan Grissemann, Profil
Crossing Europe, showing the films right at the opening that are now causing a sensation in the cinemas. Maren Ade’s story of thirty-year-olds’ relationship complications ALLE ANDEREN or the inverted Swiss road movie HOME, whose tragic heroine (Isabelle Huppert) remains in her house next to a newly built motorway until the traffic drives her to madness.
Ulrich Stock, DIE ZEIT
[...] A festival that allows itself the qualitative luxury of not only thinking in terms of target groups. A luxury that is worthwhile, as the audience crowds showed.
Christoph Huber, Die Presse
As part of the Capital of Culture year Linz09, the film festival was confirmed as a special cinema event and offered highlights of of this year’s European productions.
Christoph Huber, Die Presse
State of exception in the cinema: From Isabelle Huppert to Jean-Claude Van Damme, from an Austrian documentary from a women’s prison to Italian cult horror from the eighties: The fantastic CROSSING EUROPE Festival brings great little films to Linz for the sixth time.
Julia Pühringer, Neuner/OÖ Nachrichten
Attractive, high quality, exciting.
Julia Evers, OÖ Nachrichten
Young, future-oriented, emphasizing up and coming talent.
Frank Olbert, Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger
The collaboration with Linz09 over the past three years has again increased the interest of international press and industry representatives and local media this year. More importantly, however – the Linz audience has remained loyal to the Festival: the cinemas are full.
Isabella Reicher, Der Standard
Once again, festival director Christine Dollhofer and her team have shown how much heart and soul they put into their work. And despite the hype of the Capital of Culture year and the resulting pressure, they did not lose sight of the conceptual focus of the festival and showed that they were bang on target. The high quality of the films in all sections, the noticeable passion for innovative and challenging cinema, and the way this proves that cinema can be a separate art form, are what make Crossing Europe even without the hype of the Cultural Capital of Europe perhaps the best international festival in the German-speaking region.
Cornelis Hähnel, film.de
An invisible, unpretentious beauty. Films are at the heart of the festival. But not only that: Crossing Europe pursues a programmatic line that is wholly devoted to young, and sometimes young-at-heart auteur cinema.
Markus Keuchnigg, fm4.orf.at
A lot of charm at Crossing Europe. [...] Yesterday Christine Dollhofer, director of Crossing Europe, was able to look back at a successful festival week. In it´s sixth year the filmfestival in Linz could raise the amount of visitors from 16.000 to 18.000.
Philipp Wagenhofer, Neues Volksblatt
A festival that has made familiarity as well as balance its profession and thus lives - once again – the European idea, as hardly any other festival does.
Christian Lailach, schnitt.de
Now for the sixth time the Crossing Europe Film Festival Linz is still convincing. [...] The mix of focus on Europe with a compilation of films that may rarely celebrate their world premiere Linz, but are otherwise nowhere else to be seen in this context, with a broad scope at the same time, this is the concept that has made Crossing Europe perhaps the most interesting film festival in Austria.
Walter Gasperi, kultur-online.net
Crossing Europe - for all of seven days it is indeed something like the Austrian living room for European film.
Veronika Franz, Kurier
The Linz09 director Martin Heller recently described the film festival Crossing Europe as simply “indispensable”. And the program this year, somewhat enhanced under the auspices of the Cultural Capital Linz, is certainly a must for cineasts.
Verena Franke, Wiener Zeitung
