Thomas Taborsky

Best-known internationally for playing the lead in Stefan Ruzowitzky's Foreign Language Oscar-winning 2008 film The Counterfeiters, Austrian veteran thesp Karl Markovics has taken on his first directorial task: the 47-year-old is helming a drama titled Atmen (To Breathe).

With only three months to go until the 40th edition of the International Film Festival Rotterdam unfolds, the fest's topical main section Signals is rapidly taking shape. Some programs had already been announced: one called Red Westerns (genre exponents made in Communist countries), one on the interaction of fashion industry and independent cinema (Out of Fashion), and Raiding Africa, which carries on the fest's interest in the continent, this time by looking at Chinese-African relations.

Vienna celebrates almost two weeks' worth of film culture via the Viennale (a.k.a. Vienna International Film Festival). Bookended by Xavier Beauvois's Of Gods and Men, which took home the Grand Prix from this year's Cannes Festival, and Pedro González-Rubio's Alamar, Tiger Awardee in Rotterdam, the non-competitive fest tries to balance fiction, documentaries and short films in its main program.