The watchAUT Austrian Film Festival is coming to London, and this year it’s reaching for the stars. On the final day of the festival, two sci-fi classics will be screened back-to-back, offering audiences a glimpse into the past and the future of the genre.
First up is Rubikon, a new Austrian sci-fi thriller directed by Leni Lauritsch. The film stars British actor George Blagden, Austrian actress Julia Franz Richter, and Ukrainian-born actor Mark Ivanir. When Earth disappears in a toxic brown fog, the crew of a space station must decide whether to stay safe in space or risk their lives to get home and search for survivors. It’s a gripping tale of survival, isolation, and the human spirit.
Following Rubikon, audiences will be treated to a special archive screening of Fritz Lang’s 1929 silent film Frau Im Mond (Woman In The Moon). Lang’s film follows a group of space pioneers as they attempt mankind’s first lunar voyage. It’s often considered the first ‘serious’ sci-fi film due to its realistic depiction of space travel, and it introduced cinema audiences to many elements that we now readily associate with space travel, including the idea of a countdown before the launch of a rocket.
The festival programmers chose Frau Im Mond (Woman In The Moon) as watchAUT’s special archive screening because it’s a fascinating historical counterpoint to today’s spectacular sci-fi epics like RUBIKON. And should they choose to, audiences have the opportunity to watch both films back-to-back on the festival’s closing day.
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