- Occupation
Producer, Director - Country
Austria
Riahi Arash T.
Tomorrow You Will Leave
The story of my Vietnamese father who was able to build up a new life in a small Austrian village, but there is still an open chapter in the past: the search for the man who once helped him.
Beyond the Forest
A historical documentary about two of the last Saxons and Landlers shot in small Carpathian villages. In his garden a old man has spread out an old patched sheet. He wants to die there and be eaten by the animals. Fifty kilometres away, a woman sits at her gravestone; she has already lived five years past the date of death that is engraved on her stone. The National Socialist regime turned them into perpetrators and into victims. With the fall of Hitler, he has also fallen. She, on the other hand, had to go into a work camp for 6 years. The film shows two very humorous, but broken people, who witnessed the disappearance of their own culture. Only at the end of their lives, they are finally willing to retell the tragic experiences of their beings.
Mississippi
Nature is not what differentiates between chaos and structure, the observer does through his or her choice of point of view and representational technique. In the tradition of avant-garde film subduing chaos through abstraction, translating it into structured form, has produced as many varieties as the dissolution of easily comprehensible forms and structures in chaos. While on one hand Mississippi belongs to this tradition, it maintains an ironic distance at the same time. What in the beginning of Mississippi appears to be a lavishly choreographed dialog between natural chaos and abstract structure is revealed at some point as an autonomous concert of forms. At first one would assume that Arash T. Riahi’s intoxicating visual composition amounts to simply making chaotically spraying drops of water on the one hand and geometrically structured (and dominated by a bright red) fields of color on the other accessible in the contrapuntal rhythm of their movements. Gradually the point of view offered at the beginning starts to falter through subtle shifts in perspective and focus until the borders between chaos and structure, between abstraction and representation, begin to blur and the visual levels, apparently arranged artificially, meld into a uniform, concrete shape through interaction with the slowly beginning noise on the soundtrack.
Exile Family Movie
The Souvenirs of Mr. X
A filmmaker finds 2 boxes of Super-8 films of an unknown amateur at a flea market. He goes on an investigative journey to find this person and dives into the wonderful, obsessive universe of amateur film with its own rules, competitions and the passionate love for the moving images. "The Souvenirs of Mr. X" is an homage to amateur film-makers, their dream of cinema and their desire to find, in the unspectacular, everyday life, the truly special.
Aftermath
The Nicobars are a small archipegalo in the Indian Ocean, where one of the last indigenous people lived almost like in a time capsule for 900 years. When the Tsunami struck them in 2004 not only a third of their population died but they were also thrown into a modern world through the wave of aid and relief organisations that arrived on their shores. This aftermath proved to be a bigger catastrophe for their culture than the Tsunami. Today the organisations are leaving and the money is spent. But the Nicobaris embark on the search for a new identity.
Mama Illegal
They gave the smugglers all their money and risk their life on their journey across borders: Three women from a small town in Moldavia, living now in Austria as cleaning women. On top of their hard job they live a life in illegality without documents, far away from their children and family for years.
Everything Will Not Be Fine
In the years 2000-2001 the director Arash T. Riahi filmed the inhabitants of a transitional residential home for homeless women, who, for various different reasons, fell through the cracks of our achievement-oriented society. Nine years later the director went looking for some of these women to see how they thrive after such a long time. What became of their dreams and wishes, is the return into the cold of an unsheltered world even possible?
Jakarta Disorder
It is only the second time that Indonesians can vote for their own president. Two charismatic women, however, are not satisfied with mere elections. Grandma Dela, who lives in a slum of the tropical megacity, and the intellectual Wardah Hafidz are setting out to collect 1.5 million signatures of the poorest, who are constantly threatened by the local arbitrary justice and the desires of the global capital. Can the power of a small elite really be overthrown by the power of many, or is “real democracy“ just an ideal? With this political road-documentary the director portrays social changes and improvements in his mother's old homeland.
The story of my Vietnamese father who was able to build up a new life in a small Austrian village, but there is still an open chapter in the past: the search for the man who once helped him.
Beyond the Forest
A historical documentary about two of the last Saxons and Landlers shot in small Carpathian villages. In his garden a old man has spread out an old patched sheet. He wants to die there and be eaten by the animals. Fifty kilometres away, a woman sits at her gravestone; she has already lived five years past the date of death that is engraved on her stone. The National Socialist regime turned them into perpetrators and into victims. With the fall of Hitler, he has also fallen. She, on the other hand, had to go into a work camp for 6 years. The film shows two very humorous, but broken people, who witnessed the disappearance of their own culture. Only at the end of their lives, they are finally willing to retell the tragic experiences of their beings.
Mississippi
Nature is not what differentiates between chaos and structure, the observer does through his or her choice of point of view and representational technique. In the tradition of avant-garde film subduing chaos through abstraction, translating it into structured form, has produced as many varieties as the dissolution of easily comprehensible forms and structures in chaos. While on one hand Mississippi belongs to this tradition, it maintains an ironic distance at the same time. What in the beginning of Mississippi appears to be a lavishly choreographed dialog between natural chaos and abstract structure is revealed at some point as an autonomous concert of forms. At first one would assume that Arash T. Riahi’s intoxicating visual composition amounts to simply making chaotically spraying drops of water on the one hand and geometrically structured (and dominated by a bright red) fields of color on the other accessible in the contrapuntal rhythm of their movements. Gradually the point of view offered at the beginning starts to falter through subtle shifts in perspective and focus until the borders between chaos and structure, between abstraction and representation, begin to blur and the visual levels, apparently arranged artificially, meld into a uniform, concrete shape through interaction with the slowly beginning noise on the soundtrack.
Exile Family Movie
The Souvenirs of Mr. X
A filmmaker finds 2 boxes of Super-8 films of an unknown amateur at a flea market. He goes on an investigative journey to find this person and dives into the wonderful, obsessive universe of amateur film with its own rules, competitions and the passionate love for the moving images. "The Souvenirs of Mr. X" is an homage to amateur film-makers, their dream of cinema and their desire to find, in the unspectacular, everyday life, the truly special.
Aftermath
The Nicobars are a small archipegalo in the Indian Ocean, where one of the last indigenous people lived almost like in a time capsule for 900 years. When the Tsunami struck them in 2004 not only a third of their population died but they were also thrown into a modern world through the wave of aid and relief organisations that arrived on their shores. This aftermath proved to be a bigger catastrophe for their culture than the Tsunami. Today the organisations are leaving and the money is spent. But the Nicobaris embark on the search for a new identity.
Mama Illegal
They gave the smugglers all their money and risk their life on their journey across borders: Three women from a small town in Moldavia, living now in Austria as cleaning women. On top of their hard job they live a life in illegality without documents, far away from their children and family for years.
Everything Will Not Be Fine
In the years 2000-2001 the director Arash T. Riahi filmed the inhabitants of a transitional residential home for homeless women, who, for various different reasons, fell through the cracks of our achievement-oriented society. Nine years later the director went looking for some of these women to see how they thrive after such a long time. What became of their dreams and wishes, is the return into the cold of an unsheltered world even possible?
Jakarta Disorder
It is only the second time that Indonesians can vote for their own president. Two charismatic women, however, are not satisfied with mere elections. Grandma Dela, who lives in a slum of the tropical megacity, and the intellectual Wardah Hafidz are setting out to collect 1.5 million signatures of the poorest, who are constantly threatened by the local arbitrary justice and the desires of the global capital. Can the power of a small elite really be overthrown by the power of many, or is “real democracy“ just an ideal? With this political road-documentary the director portrays social changes and improvements in his mother's old homeland.
What's Wrong With a Free Lunch?
A crucial question: who owns the world? An economist tracks down a new spectre, haunting the planet – unconditional basic income. The film covers a fundamental issue – the question, who owns the world. From the diamond filled Namibian deserts, Mongolia’s copper mines and Alaska’s oilfields to Japan’s megacities and the world’s most renowned universities and think tanks, we travel to parts of the planet, which exemplarily stand for the earth’s resources (both material and immaterial ones). These places represent the underlying theoretical framework at a meta level in long, even-tempered shots, which shift the audience’s attention to a state of abstraction. The film’s theoretical superstructure is a reflection on classic liberal theories and moral concepts of the age of enlightenment, that more than ever shape modern, western societies.
Everyday Rebellion
Everyday Rebellion is an impressionistic documentary essay as well as a web platform about non-violent forms of protest and civil disobedience in the 21st century. A project about methods of resistance supported by technology, seen not only through the current movements of the Arabian and Iranian uprisings, but also through former successful and less successful revolts. The film describes the everyday conscious and subconscious of resistance of societies fighting suppression and repression.
A crucial question: who owns the world? An economist tracks down a new spectre, haunting the planet – unconditional basic income. The film covers a fundamental issue – the question, who owns the world. From the diamond filled Namibian deserts, Mongolia’s copper mines and Alaska’s oilfields to Japan’s megacities and the world’s most renowned universities and think tanks, we travel to parts of the planet, which exemplarily stand for the earth’s resources (both material and immaterial ones). These places represent the underlying theoretical framework at a meta level in long, even-tempered shots, which shift the audience’s attention to a state of abstraction. The film’s theoretical superstructure is a reflection on classic liberal theories and moral concepts of the age of enlightenment, that more than ever shape modern, western societies.
Everyday Rebellion
Everyday Rebellion is an impressionistic documentary essay as well as a web platform about non-violent forms of protest and civil disobedience in the 21st century. A project about methods of resistance supported by technology, seen not only through the current movements of the Arabian and Iranian uprisings, but also through former successful and less successful revolts. The film describes the everyday conscious and subconscious of resistance of societies fighting suppression and repression.
Studied Film and the Arts, has been working for the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation, the ORF, since 1995 on a freelance basis. Writer and director for the ORF youth and art departments. Founded the film and media production company "Golden Girls Filmproduktion" (www.goldengirls.at) in 1998. Has written, directed and edited several award-winning documentaries, shorts, experimental films, music videos and commercials. The cinema documentary "The Souvenirs of Mr. X" (www.HerrX.com) in cooperation with ARTE and ORF was his first long documentary. 7 time award winning “Exile Family Movie” (www.exilefamilymovie.at) was the second one. Finished in 2008 his first feature film “For a moment, freedom” (www.foramomentfreedom.com) produced by Wegafilm and Les Films du Losange. The film has won 31 international awards since it’s premiere at the Montreal World Filmfestival in 2008 and was Austria's official Oscar entry 2010. The film was released in Austria, Germany, Belgium, France, Canada, South Korea, Czech Republic, Norway, Luxembourg, Netherlands...Works as a scriptadvisor for fictional and nonfictional stories for Sources 2 and as a freelancer. Teaching nonfictional storytelling and filmfinancing since 2011.
Awards (selection): Golden Zenith Montreal World Filmfestival 2008 for best First Feature Film, Best First Film, Zurich Filmfestival 2008, best film Schwerin Filmkunst Festival 2009, Viennale 2008, best Austrian Film, Max Ophüls Award for best documentary 2007, FIPRESCI award for best Documentary at the 49th Leipzig International Filmfestival, Silver Hugo for best documentary at the Chicago International Filmfestival 2006, best short Experimental Award Melbourne Filmfestival 2006, Golden Dove for best animated Film Filmfestival Leipzig 2005…
Everything will not be fine (94min.), Austria 2012
A Simple Event (5 min.), Austria 2011
For a moment freedom (110min.), Austria 2008
Exile Family Movie (94min.), Austria 1994-2006
Mississippi (15 min.), Austria 2004, 7 international awards
The Souvenirs of Mr. X (98min.), Austria 2004
Eclipsa-n-am ce face-Let the world end (90min.), Romania/Austria 1999
Reformel (11min.), Austria 2001
The impossibility (9min.), Austria 2001
Anti-racism-Cinema spots Austria 1999
52 minutes of 48 days - Meg Stuart & damaged goods (52min.) Austria
Ars Electronica 99/ Life Science (45min.) Austria
Ars Electronica 98/ Info War (45min.) Austria
Compulsory deportation (15min.), Austria 1996
Golden Girls Filmproduktion & Filmservices GmbH
Seidengasse 15/3/20
A-1070 Vienna
Seidengasse 15/3/20
A-1070 Vienna
Awards (selection): Golden Zenith Montreal World Filmfestival 2008 for best First Feature Film, Best First Film, Zurich Filmfestival 2008, best film Schwerin Filmkunst Festival 2009, Viennale 2008, best Austrian Film, Max Ophüls Award for best documentary 2007, FIPRESCI award for best Documentary at the 49th Leipzig International Filmfestival, Silver Hugo for best documentary at the Chicago International Filmfestival 2006, best short Experimental Award Melbourne Filmfestival 2006, Golden Dove for best animated Film Filmfestival Leipzig 2005…