Imagine lounging outside on a balmy summer evening, surrounded by bars and art museums. Then add in a free movie on the big screen and you’ve got the Frameout experience.
- Open-air cinema in Vienna’s Museumsquartier (MQ)
- Free entry and an eclectic mix of movies
- Many films in original English or with English subtitles
- Location is a summer hotspot in Vienna
- 2020 dates: Jul 17 – Sep 5
- See also: Film festivals | English-language cinemas
Movies and the MQ
The Museumsquartier has a dynamic cultural vibe to it most of the year, what with all the art, dance and other events going on in the complex.
But the MQ really comes alive in summer, when the main courtyards fill with people there to soak up the warmth and chat over a glass of something cold from the many open-air bars that pop up for the season.
One of the highlights of the MQ summer is the Frameout digital film festival, with open-air screenings of a mix of films that seem to mirror the eclectic artistic surroundings: national & international movies, shorts, documentaries, science fiction, video art, action films, past classics, experimental films…anything’s possible.
Side events often support a showing. So, for example, you might find an introductory discussion of the film, genre or topic precedes the actual screening.
2020 Frameout highlights
The summer 2020 programme will shortly appear at the festival website. Until then, here’s a look back at the 2019 Frameout films that looked like they were in English or with English subtitles (there may have been others, too):
- Talking about Trees (July 12): 2019 documentary about four elderly Sudanese cineastes that tackles film, art and politics
- Tumbbad (July 26): 2018 Indian period horror that won the cinematography, production design and sound design categories at the 2019 Filmfare Awards
- The Glass Bottom Boat (August 2): 1966 romantic comedy starring Doris Day (who passed away in 2019)
- Jessica Forever (August 3): 2018 French dystopian thriller
- Minding the Gap (August 9): 2018 documentary following the lives of three young skateboarders in a challenging social and economic urban US environment. Winner of the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Filmmaking at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival
- Jawline (August 16) : 2018 US documentary tracing the efforts of a Tennessee teenager to become a social media influencer
- Super (August 23): 2010 US “superhero” comedy with a darker side to it
- Espero Tua (Re)volta (August 30): 2019 Brazilian documentary on the student protest movement, which had its world premier at the 2019 Berlinale
2020 dates and tickets
Frameout runs on selected days from July 17th to September 5th (more details as I get them).
Entry to Frameout is normally free (yay!), and you can usually get a free audio headset on site for a returnable deposit.
How to get to Frameout
See the main Museumsquartier article for directions to the MQ complex. The screen is usually in courtyard 8, which is between the MUMOK museum and the Architecture Centre.
Basically, if you go into the MQ through the main entrance, turn right and walk past the MUMOK on your left.
If the weather is bad, which doesn’t happen too often in a Vienna summer, then the Frameout showings typically shift indoors to the Arena 21 building (in the tract left of the main entrance as you go into the MQ).
Address: Museumsquartier, Museumsplatz 1, 1070 Vienna | Website