Katharina Mückstein

Early life Mückstein was born in Vienna in 1982 and grew up in Bad Vöslau. Her mother, Eva Mückstein, is a psychotherapist and politician of the Green Party of Austria. is a physician and politician who served as Minister of Social Affairs, Health, Care and Consumer Protection in Austria from 19 April 2021 until 8 March 2022.

Mückstein has been interested in feminism and queer philosophy since adolescence and studied gender before going to film school.

She studied filmmaking at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna until 2010, Mückstein said that a "sexist climate" contributed to her dropping out of college.

Career In 2008, she directed the short film The Reunion . In 2010, she founded the work collective and production company La Banda Film together with Flavio Marchetti, Michael Schindegger and Natalie Schwager.

In 2013, she directed and wrote the screenplay for her first feature film, Talea, In 2016, she collaborated again with Sophie Stockinger in a leading role for her second feature film, the coming-of-age drama L'Animale, which premiered at the 2018 Berlin Film Festival in the Panorama section. She also produced the 2016 documentary Three Farmers and a Son , for which she won the Austrian Film Award for Best Documentary, and in 2017 she wrote and produced the documentary Animals and Other People . Mückstein hosted the 2017 Austrian Film Award ceremony along with actor Christoph Dostal.

In 2020, Mückstein directed the TV film . She also directed its two sequels released in 2022: , and .

From 22 September to 2 October 2022, Mückstein was a member of the Focus Competition jury of the Zurich Film Festival.

In 2023, Mückstein wrote, directed and produced Feminism WTF, a documentary on feminism and gender equality. It won the Audience Award for Most Popular Film at the 2023 Diagonale Festival of Austrian Film, the Best Director award at the Vienna Women's Prize, and became the third most-watched Austrian film of 2023.

Activism Mückstein is a feminist and political activist for anti-discrimination agendas in the film industry. Since 2011, she has been a board member of the Association FC Gloria - Women Networking Film for the promotion of female filmmakers in Austria.

On 18 June 2022, Mückstein initiated a debate by sharing on her Instagram account her experiences with sexism and sexual harassment in the film industry since she was 19, such as when a lighting technician insulted her body every day on a film set and then said that he wanted to fuck her, She also shared an Instagram story that read: "Tonight a perpetrator will stand on the stage and will be applauded. And there is nothing we can do to counter that. It's devastating. I wish all those affected good nerves. #MeToo didn't even start in Austria". No name was given, but the only event of that kind taking place in Austria that night was the premiere of Corsage in Vienna, which led to speculation that Mückstein was referring to someone who worked in that film. Mückstein later said that she couldn't name the man for legal reasons. which generated a lot of debates, media attention and sparked a new wave of the #MeToo Movement in Austria.

Six months after starting a debate on abuse and sexual harassment in the Austrian film industry, Mückstein said that her involvement hasn't made her survival in the film industry any easier, and that it pushed her even more to the edge of the film industry, as she noticed that people avoid her and that there are a wide variety of attempts to discredit her.

Max Ophüls Festival Prize of the Minister President of the State of Saarland

Zurich Film Festival Golden Eye - Best German Language Feature Film

Best Director Best Screenplay

Teddy Award - Best Feature Film Panorama Audience Award - Fiction Film Best Film Jerusalem Film Festival FIPRESCI Prize - International First Film Seoul International Women's Film Festival Best Film Les Arcs Film Festival Best Narrative Feature Zurich Film Festival Golden Eye - Best Film in Focus Switzerland, Germany, Austria

Austrian Film Award Best Feature Film Palm Springs International Film Festival New Voices/New Visions Grand Jury Prize 2020 Prix Europa TV Fiction

Diagonale Festival of Austrian Film Audience Award for Most Popular Film

Vienna Women's Prize Best Director