Erste Bank Film Award 2026

Images that embody time itself. A look at a reservoir in the Waldviertel region over the course of several years—or, more precisely, over 22 months—captured continuously using the custom-developed "VistaRama 65mm" analog film format. Within this format, the shifting light of the changing seasons and an entire microcosm are inscribed. As the exposure time steadily increases, the interplay on the screen evolves into a true cosmology of cinema—one in which the laws of physics, time, and space appear to be suspended.

The winning film captivates on several levels: as a form of sensory magic on the big screen, and as a technical experiment that—through a rigorously timed orchestration of rhythm, image, and sound—builds toward a spectacular cinematic finale. When an entire annual cycle thunders across the screen in the film’s final 17 seconds, cinema truly finds its essence. Twenty-four hours of life compressed into a single analog frame. Goosebumps.

This year, the Erste Bank Film Award goes to an experimental film unlike any that has come before—and to a filmmaker who approaches the cinematic image and the apparatus of cinema as an intrinsically linked, cohesive whole. Ultimately, this award also honors a genre of film that rarely finds visibility in mainstream cinema—yet one that profoundly shifts our perspective on the world, bringing it into sharp, conscious focus.