2024 marks the 10th anniversary of Austrian painter Maria Lassnig's death. To celebrate the remarkable life and career of this Austrian artist our CineClub presents a short programme dedicated to her oevre. We begin with this biopic which has screened at film festivals internationally and conclude with a programme of her animated shorts later in the month.

Growing up in southern Austria, Lassnig is drawn, via Vienna’s Art Academy, into the local post-war art scene. Taciturn, stubborn among men who like to hear themselves speak, she feels her way into her own body and takes a look at the world. She paints. She films. Mercilessly and mischievously. Doggedly, she develops her career. She knows the value of her painting long before the art world follows suit with its verdict. Birgit Minichmayr embodies Maria Lassnig in Anja Salomonowitz’s filmic homage to the artist across all stages of her life and psychological states, fleshing out the “body awareness” of Lassnig’s art with a physical body that produces the art. An offbeat and complex biopic in hybrid form: acted scenes and documentary sequences interlock. The images are real.

AT, 2024, 107min, German with English subtitles, Directed by Anja Salomonowitz