The documentary genre willbe particularly strong at this year's Diagonale - Festival of Austrian Cinemawhich is being opened in Graz on March 21 with FlorianFlicker's No Name City about a WildWest town theme park south of Vienna.

Among the 22 newdocumentaries selected to screen are Elisabeth Scharang'sTintenfischalarm (which had its world premiere at theBerlinale's Panorama section last month), Nikolaus Geyrhalter's Unser Taeglich Brot, and Susanne Brandstaetter'sRule Of Law, while the showcase ofeight new Austrian feature films has lined up films such as Eva Urthaler's Keller -Teenage Wasteland, Helmut Koepping's Kotsch, andBarbara Graeftner's Mutterherz and the Swiss-Austrianco-production of Samir's Snow White,

In 2006, outside of thefilm programmes, this annual gathering of the Austrian film scene will focus onthe state of local film production with roundtable discussions on strategiesfor raising the domestic market share for Austrian films, the relationship withpublic broadcaster ORF, challenges of digitalisation for the local market andthe importance of the press and festivals for strengthening the Austrianproduction landscape.

The Diagonalewill also host a Focus on Denmark with a programme of eight films by six Danishdirectors (including Christoffer Boe'sReconstruction, Paprika Steen's Aftermath and NicolausWindig Refn's Pusher II), a presentation of the DanishFilm Institute and a public lecture by writer/dramaturgMogens Rukov to show how Denmark'sapproach to filmmaking could possibly be a model for Austria (as a smallcountry) to emulate in the future.