Slightly smaller than in '94 and under the sole directorship of Alexander Horwath, the '95 V'iennale continued its tradition as a filmmaker friendly, global, non-competitive festival. According to Horwath, "the V'iennale program was designed to highlight approximately 125 new features, documentaries and short films, including rediscoveries in the `Lost and Found' section, `Tributes' dedicated to Philippe Garrel and Bahram Beyzai and a retrospective, `The Last Great American Picture Show: New Hollywood 1967-1976,' part two of our in-depth study of `post-classical' U.S. cinema."

The festival showcased a solid group of U.S. independents which garnered mixed reactions. The local audience filed out of the classic Urania Theater in stunned silence after Larry Clark's verité non-apple-pie view of American teens, Kids. Tom DiCillo's Living in Oblivion was well received as were a collection of American shorts: Alex Wolfe's CrackerJack and The Mule, Todd Haynes' Dottie Gets Spanked, Hannah Weyer's The Salesman and Other Adventures and Richard Blue Lormand's TI-Boy's Wife. Todd Haynes, in attendance with producer Christine Vachon, encountered a European press bewildered by his feature, Safe.

Numerous filmmakers including Jim McBride, Monte Hellman, Ulu Grosbard, Bryan Singer, and Brett Thompson made the trip to Vienna with their films and partook in the local Schnitzel, Bier and Gemütlichkeit, which the festival doled out in large quantities. Universal Pictures flew in a few NASA Astronauts to launch Apollo 13 and the film's co-screenwriter, Al Reinart, was in town for the double bill with his spectacular documentary For All Mankind, a virtual blueprint for the mega-budget film.

The German speaking territories were well represented with some standout films: Austria's Oscar entry Ameisenstrasse by Michael Glawogger, maverick German director Romuald Karmakar's man-in-a-room Der Totmacher and Swiss director Peter Liechti's Signers Koffer, which turned out to be the audience favorite. Filmmakers from Iran, France, Taiwan and Japan rounded out the international flavor; the V'iennale's first FIPRESCI jury award went to the Lithuanian/German Koridorius by Sarunas Bartas.

Waltzing to an upbeat tune with record attendance (over 45,000 filmgoers and 500 journalists) the 33rd edition of the V'iennale came to a close on October 22, after 10 eventful days and nights.

International Thessaloniki Film Festival
Festival Internazionale Giovanni
Toronto International Film Festival
Montreal World Film Festival
V'iennale