Tutti Frutti x Lovefoxy
Whether in Berghain’s Panoramabar, at Amsterdam’s DGTL or at Egg London – Berlin’s LOVEFOXY enchants dancefloors worldwide with her carefully selected 90s house. We are all the more delighted that she is celebrating her premiere at project Innsbruck!
Yagódy
The Ensemble Yagódy is one of the most charismatic Ukrainian folk ensembles from Lviv. Founded in the year 2016 at the Theater-Faculty, Yagódy launched their debut album in 2020. The four founding women travelled through several Ukrainian oblasts to track down the musical traditions of the people there. From this inexhaustible number of songs about life, Yagódy create their own exciting and unmistakable sound. The musicians feel at home in the theatre and realize their musical ideas for the stage according to dramaturgical principles. Their songs are love letters from the past, which have not arrived yet.
Surprise Screening
In collaboration with the International Film Festival Innsbruck IFFI, we are screening “The Etilaat Roz” on Saturday at Cinematograph.
Life Tellings: Biographies of Refugees.
In times of heated information dissemination and opinion-forming, the question arises as to whether other methods of “news” formats are needed to keep attention on topics of long-term explosiveness. Public debates about flight and migration in particular show that these topics are both highly polarizing and important “focal points” of remembrance culture and contemporary history. They also often provide an anchor for long-term civic commitment. How can (auto)biographical narratives help to bear witness to reality and reach a broad public? How can we prevent tragedies from becoming the object of sensationalism? Can we do justice to individuals and are biographical approaches a legitimate means of providing information?
Reportagen Live on Stage – “Sushi From the Cage”
“Your arrival in the kitchens of the world was your death sentence”, is how Rocío Puntas Bernet’s report begins, which can be experienced as a staged reading at the Journalismusfest Innsbruck: a report about the coveted bluefin tuna. Within 30 years the former large stocks collapsed. The global boom in sushi has led to massive fishing pressure, particularly in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. In the Turkish part of these seas it is considered extinct. In order to satisfy the global hunger for sushi, the huge animals are fattened in large numbers in the Mediterranean.
A story about the legal grey areas in the food industry and an ode to tuna. The Bühnen Bern and the journal Reportagen present their original stage format for the first time in Austria.
The Fear of the Third World War
Eric Frey, editor of Standard, explains in the podcast “Topic of the Day” how explosive the current world situation is. How the war in Ukraine rewrites the world order. What this means for China/Taiwan and North Korea. And how the USA and Europe fall under pressure. He also analyses how the multiple conflicts are connected to each other and if and how a third world war could come about, that has been taking place virtually for a long time already.
Armin Thurnher in conversation
Armin Thurnher, who turned 75 in February, is one of the most sharp-witted analysts in Austria and an excellent essayist. He shaped the public discourse with his analyses of the political situation and the Media landscapes in Austria and Europe. Thurnher is from Bregenz and co-founded the weekly newspaper Falter in 1977. He is its publisher and still one of the two editors-in-chief. In addition, he is the author of 13 books. His most recent publications are the novel “Fähre nach Manhatten”, the political essay “Anstandslos” and “Preis und Klage. Reden und Nachreden in Versen”. Armin Thurnher received numerous prizes and awards. In March 2024 he received the Austrian State Prize for Cultural Journalism.
Werner Bätzing: “Homo destructor”
In light of the massive environmental destruction that is now affecting the entire planet and challenging human existence, a question urgently arises: Is the human being a Homo destructor who destroys its environment always and everywhere? Or do we have a destructive side that only becomes visible under certain circumstances? Do humans only turn into Homo destructor at a certain point in time?
The well-known geographer and doyen of Alpine research Werner Bätzing gets to the bottom of these questions in a comprehensive history of man and the environment. Cultural self-limitation in earlier times is called into question by the industrial revolution, modern science, enlightenment and the market economy. This is the beginning of a way of thinking and acting that exploits nature and the environment on a short-term basis and destroys the limited earth. Bätzing pleads in his Opus magnum “Homo destructor” (Beck, 2023) for a new cultural self-limitation.
Fuocoammare
Documentary filmmaker Gianfranco Rosi spent over a year on the Italian island of Lampedusa, observing how refugees arrive here every day in the hope of a better life and how the people react towards them. Twelve-year-old Samuele, who witnesses a great human tragedy with his family, is at the centre of the film, which also deals with media coverage. Through his everyday observations, Gianfranco Rosi approaches a place that is as real as it is symbolic as well as the emotional world of some of its inhabitants, who are exposed to a permanent state of emergency. And at the same time, the film, which does not need a narration, describes how even in the smallest of spaces, two worlds barely touch.
Eastern Europe: Controlled media in Hungary
Ever since Victor Orbán has been in power in Hungary, the media has gradually been taken under the control of the government. In Reporters Without Borders’ ranking of press freedom, Hungary comes last in the EU. The weekly newspaper HVG remains one of the last independent newspapers and its editor-in-chief is a guest at the Journalismusfest.
Large foundations have recently become involved in Eastern European countries in order to preserve the remaining media diversity and thus strengthen democracies. In 2021, the Dutch Plūrālis Foundation was founded with the aim of investing specifically in Eastern European media. The Austrian ERSTE Foundation is also invested in Plūrālis.
Hotspot Méditerranée
The Mediterranean region is a hotspot in which crises and challenges overlap. The sea is warming up more than the global average, the ecosystem is being severely affected by oil and gas extraction, climate change is having a socio-economic impact on coastal areas and large-scale fishing is robbing traditional fisheries of their livelihoods. But there are also pioneers of sustainability and there is a great deal of commitment to rescuing refugees.
The journalist Stefano Liberti and the photographer Francesco Bellina are travelling throughout the Mediterranean for a large documentary project: The research trip leads them to Murcia and Favignana off Sicily, to Tanger and the Kerkennah Islands off Tunisia, to the Nile Delta and the Suez Canal, to Cyprus, to the islands of Antikythera and Jabuka, all the way to Venice.
Fueling the Invasion
In November 2022 shocking allegations were made about German oil company Wintershall Dea. German media alleged links between Wintershall and the Russian military, claiming that companies owned jointly by Wintershall and Russian state-owned gas company Gazprom had been drilling for gas in western Siberia and produced fuel used by Russian fighter jets as they attacked Ukrainian civilians.
Wintershall denied these accusations, claiming a lack of evidence. But in April 2023, an investigation led by Global Witness revealed new evidence of the supply chains connecting Wintershall’s Siberian gas fields to Russia’s military supply chains, showing how gas condensate from Wintershall’s fields in Western Siberia feed a refinery which sends diesel to Russian military suppliers.
This short film looks at the human stories behind our investigation. Filmed largely in Ukraine, it includes powerful testimonies from survivors of Russian air attacks. It asks the question: whilst western governments decry the war in Ukraine, how has this been allowed to happen?
Far Away and yet so Close
Following the Hamas massacre on October 7th 2023, war in Israel and Palestine has erupted once more and has also been dominating German speaking media. For the Palestinian and Israeli-Jewish diaspora the war is closer than just an image on the news: They are worried about relatives and friends and facing hostilities and a tense discourse themselves. Jewish Israelis and Palestinians sharing a panel has become an exception by now. Alena Jabarine and Tomer Dotan-Dreyfus will do just that. With Bascha Mika they will talk about their view on the conflict, being seen and being ignored, and the debate in the German-speaking world.
Servus. Grüezi. Hallo.
At a gig in the autumn of 2023, Berlin-based editor for the German weekly newspaper ZEIT Lenz Jacobsen spoke about Austria and Switzerland: “(Sounds like) beautiful countries. If that is the case: Why the hell are we sitting in a grey fairground hall instead of in the Alpine idyll?” This is why the third gig of the three ZEIT editors at Journalismusfest Innsbruck will take place against a unique backdrop for the first time – live at Seegrube cable car station above Innsbruck. Just like every week, the journalists from Innsbruck / Vienna, Zurich, and Berlin will discuss current affairs in their podcast. This time, in the midst of an Alpine idyll.
Migration Routes
On October 3rd 2013, a boat sinks off the coast of Lampedusa. More than 300 people die and the then mayor Giusi Nicolini knows: something needs to happen. A few days later, she holds an impressive speech at the EU summit. In 2015, one year after the discontinuation of the Italian state-run rescue operation Mare Nostrum, the organisation for the rescue of life at sea SOS Méditerranée was founded. Since then, it saved 38,500 lives and was awarded the Right Livelihood Award in 2023 for its operation. By now, civil-operated sea rescue has become a difficult undertaking. Europe is closing down its external borders, at times, resorting to violence. Time and time again, we see reports about EU Border Guard Agency Frontex being involved in pushbacks of migrants on the Greek coast.
Disguised as a Secretary for the Nazi Campaign Newspaper
She was probably the first investigative journalist in the German world. 1923, at the age of 24, Paula Schlier, who had previously published articles against the Nazis as a journalist, sneaked into the party leaflet of the NSDAP, the “Völkischer Beobachter”. Disguised as a secretary she also documented Hitler’s attempted putsch on November 8th/9th 1923. Her diary reports were published in 1926 as a celebrated first work by the Brenner publishing house in Innsbruck: “Petras Aufzeichnungen oder Konzept einer Jugend nach dem Diktat der Zeit” (Petra’s Records or the Concept of Youth under the Dictate of Time) was a statement against a world that was radicalising to the right. On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Hitler putsch, Innsbruck-based Germanists Annette Steinsiek and Ursula A. Schneider have published a commentary on Paula Schlier’s report. Based on that, the Bavarian Broadcasting (BR) has produced the documentation “Hitlerputsch 1923. The Diary of Paula Schlier”.
Atlas of Globalisation.
The Atlas of Globalisation by Le Monde diplomatique has been setting standards in journalistic cartography for 20 years. It represents a comprehensive and clear illustration of what globalisation means in the 21st century: for the freedom of movement of people and goods, for political participation, and for social progress. The current Atlas of Globalisation labelled “Ungleiche Welt” (Unequal World) is showcased as part of a collaboration between Journalismusfest with Le Monde Diplomatique / Berlin.
Martin Thür – My Collection.
Martin Thür is anchorman of the Austrian news programme ZIB 2 and a zealous fan of Excel lists,. There is however a second passion, that he is less well-known for: collecting whimsical campaign gifts. On the occasion of the super election year 2024, he created an Excel list with his funniest and strangest campaign gifts. At this year’s Journalismusfest, he is going to open the doors to this selection in an exclusive exhibitions for the first time. Stop by to see highlights like an Erwin Pröll action figure, an ice scraper “against the social cold” and clothespins for solar-powered drying.
Uncovering Science and its Status
Scientific communication is a broad field, with formats and narrative forms becoming more diverse. Conveying the significance of complex learnings in specialised fields for a broad interested public proves to be an exciting challenge: for journalists as well as for bodies with expertise in imparting information like universities, for influencers on social media and for scientists themselves.
Forgotten conflicts: Myanmar
In Myanmar, formerly Burma, indications of a positive development have been observed for the first time since the military coup of February 2021. Rebel groups allied with the underground democracy movement engage in nation-wide actions against the military junta. Famous Burmese intellectual, writer, activist and doctor Ma Thida finds the the resistance of the civil society and democratic movement encouraging. The winner of the last elections and Peace Nobel Prize Winner Aun San Suu Kyi was removed by the coup d’état and remains to be incarcerated. A disenchanting situation for media professionals: On the World Press Freedom Index, Myanmar ranks 173th out of 180 states.
Ma Thida too, had been incarcerated for a long time and is now living in exile in Berlin. With journalist and Asia expert Sven Hansen, she discusses the Spring Revolution in Maynmar and how it strives to find a multi-ethnic democratic exit from this labyrinth. International reactions prove to be disappointing.
If You Take One From Us, We All Answer
The 23rd February 2024 was yet another sad low point in Austria’s femicide history: Five women and girls were murdered on a single day due to their gender. A total of 26 femicides were recorded in 2023, making Austria the country with the highest rate of femicides in the EU. For their radio feature, Janina Böck-Koroschitz and Elisabeth Weilenmann met many people who deal with the topic, including the survivor Renate Daurer, the psychiatrist Adelheid Kastner and the doctor Peter Klar, who prevented a femicide. They introduce preventive measures, report about activism and show how moral courage can save lives.
Visual Investigation and Image Verification
How can you verify whether images show what they claim to be showing? How can an editorial team find out where a video was taken? Whether the footage is recent or years old? There is an increasing need for editorial teams to verify images. Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) is making their lives easier. This term derives from the realm of intelligence services. OSINT journalists use all freely-available online sources: not only photos and videos; but also databases or satellite images. When engaged in open-source investigations, journalists increasingly assume roles similar to those of law enforcement officers. Investigative networks like Bellingcat or Forensic Architecture are specialised in this field. Lea Weinmann, editor of the investigative team of German daily newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung illustrates this task referring to media coverage from areas torn by war and crises.
Pathway to Journalism
Why should I even consider becoming a journalist? Elitist, yet badly paid. Hostilities online and scarce job prospects. Is a journalism career still worthwhile? It is the greatest profession of the world for some after all. How can I get a foothold in the world of media and what are the skills I need to be successful? Students of the German training institution for journalists Deutsche Journalistenschule München present the different training routes to work in an editorial department and give an insight into their own experiences, explaining why it is never too late to start a career in this field.
Migration Metaphors.
Populist media often provide simplistic solutions for complex problems and issues. For platforms containing such contents it is common to refer to terms like “exchange of populations” and “waves of refugees”. Such vocabulary suggests doomsday images in Europe. What is the purpose of these metaphors and terms like “remigration”? How come that they manage to establish themselves so quickly in our society? We would like to discuss this question in an interactive format, that will also involve the audience’s participation.
So Long as… I Am a Feminist
A call for more solidarity, unity and activism: Since 2018, visual Artist Katharina Cibulka and her team have been installing hand-embroidered scaffold nets on well-visited, prominent construction sites and inspiring discourse among passers-by with socio-political messages. One sentence starting with “So Long as” and ending in “I Am a Feminist” points at existing inequalities. („Let’s Go Equal. The Solange Project“, published by Hirmer-Verlag, 2024)
During their conversation, Katharina Cibulka and her colleague Tina Themel will illustrate their artistic approach. After that, visitors can visit “arttirol 10”, the presentation of art acquisitions of the Federal State of Tyrol between 2021 and 2023. This also includes a relict (Net no. 5) of the “Wrapping of the Innsbruck Cathedral” by Katharina Cibulka.
Martin Thür – My Collection.
Martin Thür is anchorman of the Austrian news programme ZIB 2 and a zealous fan of Excel lists,. There is however a second passion, that he is less well-known for: collecting whimsical campaign gifts. On the occasion of the super election year 2024, he created an Excel list with his funniest and strangest campaign gifts. At this year’s Journalismusfest, he is going to open the doors to this selection in an exclusive exhibitions for the first time. Stop by to see highlights like an Erwin Pröll action figure, an ice scraper “against the social cold” and clothespins for solar-powered drying.
20 днів у Маріуполі / 20 Days in Mariupol
A Ukrainian journalist team from the Associated Press (AP) documents the atrocities committed by the Russian invasion forces in Mariupol despite the siege. As the only reporters on the ground, they capture crucial images of the war, including the suffering of the civilian population, mass graves and the bombing of a maternity clinic. The documentary film by Pulitzer Prize winner Mstyslav Chernov also shows the effects of the Russia-Ukraine war on the AP press agency. The film is based on Chernov’s daily reports and his own footage from the war zone. This multi-award-winning documentary provides harrowing insights into the suffering of civilians under siege. Despite the gravity of the topic, it takes an invaluable look at the challenges of news journalism in conflict zones and also shows the global impact.
A Farewell to Crisis Mode.
Can a constructive and solution-oriented form of journalism be the solution for the increasing media apathy? This approach has big potential, that is for sure: Casting a differentiated view on different solution approaches and successful concepts, constructive journalism can open new perspectives and strengthen the understanding for complexity and ambiguity. But if nobody wants to click on good news, how can constructive and solution-oriented journalism win a majority appeal? Or is there a constructive way of dealing with crises? The panellists report from their practical experience as editor, founder and coach. They address examples of constructive journalism and its advantages.
Newspaper Breakfast.
Have you always wanted to know how the main editorial office of Austrian daily newspaper Standard makes their decisions, what kind of coffee supports this process and why certain topics make it to the cover? The newspaper breakfast is here to give you a sneak peak into the press review conducted by Daniela Kraus and the entire deputy chief editorship. They will also have a look at other newspapers and discuss Rainer Schüller’s favourite type of cake. And you, the audience, will have the opportunity to ask your burning questions.
