Anything but ELITIST – Crossing Europe Linz: This is where unconventional, young and very European cinema is at home.
Celluloid // Matthias Greuling
Crossing Europe: Nuances from all over Europe brought to light in Linz.
cineuropa.org // Laura Nanchino
The Linz film festival makes it possible to take a filmic journey all across the continent, which confronts the audience with experiences of fleeing and migration, discrimination and repression – but also with figures that prevail against all obstacles and strive for self-determination.
critic.de // Gabriela Seidel-Hollaender
The compact, almost family-like feeling that arises in the two main locations Moviemento and City-Kino makes up a considerable portion of the charm that Crossing Europe exudes. In addition, the film selection really does offer something for every taste, but without seeming ingratiating or erratic.
Deadline Magazin // Florian Widegger
After only 13 editions, the European film festival in Linz has meanwhile become a fixture among international festivals.
Dolomiten // Marian Wilhelm
“Crossing Europe”, the film festival in Linz, Austria, was impressive again in 2016 with new discoveries, and also with a moving retrospective that made a principle of looking back.
epd film // Barbara Schweizerhof
What is quite remarkable about the Crossing Europe Festival is not only the presentation of a filmmaker barely known in this region, but also the fact that all the screenings were nearly sold out. Falter // Michael Omasta
Crossing Europe in Linz shows European auteur cinema in step with the times. Productions from 35 countries are represented this year, with settings leading into even more countries. The stories are hard-core, moving, and eye-opening. Crossing Europe relies on what is innovative and exciting.
fm4.orf.at // Maria Motter
Austria’s “European” film festival in Linz has worked its way up to become a fixture in the national film scene. Die Furche // Thomas Taborsky
This year “Crossing Europe” offers a survey of the state of mind in a Europe that is struggling with major challenges.
Kirchenzeitung Oberösterreich // Markus Vorauer
CROSSING EUROPE – A film festival with attitude.
Kronen Zeitung Oberösterreich // Milli Hornegger
A festival that not only served up outstanding masterpieces, but also evinced a clear signature and offered an opportunity for fascinating discoveries. Unfortunately, probably only few of them will find a distributor and thus the way into cinemas.
kultur-online.net // Walter Gasperi
The Linz film festival “Crossing Europe” is a highlight in the Austrian festival jungle – and it is clearly political in its orientation and positioning. Central themes this year are fleeing, migration, and the state of Europe.
Kurier Oberösterreich
In addition to the refugee crisis, the precarious situation of Europe is also pictured at Crossing Europe – close to the people and their hard everyday lives. And yet this annual assembly is not a cinematic nest of depression. Perspectives and paths of hope are also shown here in many contributions, how to get out of crises, how to derive positive developments for oneself.
Neues Volksblatt // Philipp Wagenhofer
Tottering Europe captured in film – the program of the Linz film festival shows how strongly and quickly Europe’s directors react to crises and social divides.
OÖ Nachrichten // Nora Bruckmüller
Intimate insights into Europe’s film world: Europe between the private and the political.
orf.at // Sonia Neufeld
Existences in filmic fast-forward – this year Crossing Europe shows a cross-section from the work by Helena Třeštíková. Since the late 1970s she has been working tirelessly as a chronicler of fates, accompanying people over decades with her camera and presenting their existences in fast-forward – as a mirror of a society in transformation, but first and foremost as moving documents of the uncertainties of life. What emerges primarily from her fascinating films is that there is no dramaturgy for life.
Die Presse // Andrey Arnold
Her film festival is politically aware, has a predilection for young cinema, and is marked by a strong spirit of exploration, a tendency to the experimental: Christine Dollhofer, director of “Crossing Europe” since 2004, is still doing her job – selecting and contextualizing high quality European auteur films – with palpable pleasure and great ambitions even in the 13th year.
profil // Stefan Grissemann
In the 13th year of its existence, Austria’s second largest (and most charming) film festival again offers an opportunity for a cineastic exploration of Europe in all of its diversity and complexity.
Raiffeisen Zeitung // Eva Pakisch
The fact that the likable film festival in Linz on the Danube, under the tried and true direction of Christine Dollhofer, is already taking place for the 13th time, can be regarded as a success story, especially since Crossing Europe generally dispenses with blockbusters and serves sophisticated cineastic delicacies every year, which are not usually shown in this region in conventional cinemas.
ray filmmagazin // Oliver Stangl
Where Europe shows its other face.
Salzburger Nachrichten // Lena Miedl
Freedom begins with the perspective – in narrative and style the films here move far beyond the arthouse conventions of regular cinema business. In return, one also accepts a few minor rough spots. In Linz it is not a matter of finding masterpieces overlooked by other festivals, but rather of illuminating niches of (trans-)European life worlds: or focusing on figures that are not already morally preformatted when they appear on the screen.
Der Standard // Dominik Kamalzadeh
Crossing Europe 2016: Live Europe, take down fences!
subtext.at // Andreas Wörister
Crossing Europe: “Fortress Europe” reeling in film.
Tips Linz // Jürgen Affenzeller
Dollhofer has long since turned “Crossing Europe” into a trademark in the festival circus, and this benefits not only the film showing itself, but also the cultural life of Linz, which has given “Crossing Europe” a home base.
Wiener Zeitung // Matthias Greuling
Flying a flag for the socio-political and artistically innovative film – Crossing Europe shows how it’s done.
Zeit im Bild – ORF Kultur // Julia Fellerer
