VIENNA 15.11.- 24.11.2024

ROTLICHT FESTIVAL OPENING

Thank you to all who attended yesterday’s festival opening! 

We opened our main exhibition with the projects of our 18 international open call winners with the theme

“Outsiders” as well as the exhibition “Animal Absurdity” with works by Roger Ballen who was present at the opening. We are happy to host the works of so many talented photographers.

A big thank you as well to our three main partners Leica Camera Austria, Vintage Visual and Valoi.

SUPPORT OUR WORK

When visiting the main exhibition at the Festival Headquarters you will find this QR code.

We use it to offer visitors the opportunity to support us and the work of the association. By scanning the code and using the Bluecode software, you can easily donate a freely chosen amount to our association Zigutamve, which is organising the festival.

With your donation, no matter how big, you will support our work for the festival.

About Zigutamve:

ZIGUTAMVE – Association for contemporary photography was founded in Vienna in 2016. Primarily as an idea of a group of analogue photographers to offer a platform for the creative and organisational exchange of projects. This idea is still our binding philosophy today. Since 2021, the association has been the host and organiser of the international „Rotlicht. Festival for analog photography“ in Vienna.

As a non-profit organisation, we promote art and culture and are committed to non-violent communication, mutual respect and equality. We promote the medium of photography, offer opportunities for exchange and address a wide range of visitors with our program. 

PROGRAM 2024

The program of ROTLICHT Festival 2024 is ready.

THIS YEAR'S HEADLINER:

ROGER BALLEN

For this year’s ROTLICHT Festival, we can proudly announce that Roger Ballen and his fantastic work will be the focus in our „Festival Selection“, located at ROTLICHT’s HQ, the Prospekthof of the Atelierhaus der Akademie der bildenden Künste in Vienna.
Born in the US, Roger Ballen has worked in Johannesburg and its surroundings since the 1970s. Initially, he documented marginalised white South Africans in remote regions near the end of the Apartheid era, conveying their state of mind through stark black and white photography. His work represents astoundingly unique this year’s festival motto „Outsiders“. “The pictures bring up things that people don’t want to see, that make them look in the mirror the self they try to avoid“, as Roger describes his work.
Beside the festival exhibition, Roger will exhibit at the Leica Gallery Austria, one of ROTLICHT’s prime partners this year. He will also participate in a talk session during ROTLICHT 2024.

THESE ARE OUR

OPEN CALL WINNERS 2024!

We are delighted to present to you this year’s winners, who were selected from hundreds of submissions from all over the world and whose exciting projects and creative photographic techniques convinced our jury the most:

The exhibition will be unveiled as part of our festival opening event on November 15 at the Atelierhaus of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (Lehárgasse 8, 1060) at 7 pm.

We congratulate all winners and are already excited for the opening!

For a first glimpse at the projects, view our reel about the winners on Instagram:

Book your workshop - Early Bird

EARLY BIRD: GET 15 % OFF 
ON WORKSHOPS

Book your workshop at this year’s Rotlicht Festival now and get a 15 % early bird reduction!

You can find all workshops listed at »WORKSHOPS« and book them via our shop.

The offer is valid until October 30,2024

OFFICIAL FESTIVAL PARTNER

ROTLICHT is exited to have Valoi as one of our premium partners for this year’s festival.
Valoi loves the analog photography world as much as we do. With the products designed by them, the „Do it yourself“ factor in scanning your negatives comes to a new level with great results. We recorded a video, where you can have a first glimpse of what you can achieve with the Valoi products, presented by the mastermind behind the company, Arild Båsmo.
During this year’s ROTLICHT Festival (November 15-24), Arild will host two workshops to teach all relevant components of the Valoi systems –  BEGINNERS and ADVANCED. Stay tuned and register when interested.

WE ARE EXTENDING 
THE OPEN CALL!

Following the many submissions received, we are extending the Open Call until midnight August 11, 2024. If you haven’t already done so, now is your time to prepare your submission!

NEW DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS:
AUGUST 11, 2024 (MIDNIGHT)

20240524_RL-OpenCall-Flyer

OPEN CALL 2024

This years’ Open Call theme: “OUTSIDERS” 
“Outsiders” can be a proud self-description (for example: punk culture, which sees itself as a micro-society in contrast to the established and dominant framework), it can be a pejorative term to relegate undesirables to the margins of society (while being appropriated by marginalised people to empower themselves). Or it can convey a sense of ambivalence in terms of belonging to a place, a group of people, a family etc. We hope that these strands of reflection can provide creative channels for artists to present their contributions to ROTLICHT Festival 2024, whether the approach to »Outsiders« is personal or intended for artistic exploration.

ANNOUNCEMENT FOR OPEN CALL 2024

The time has come! With the first rays of sunshine, the team meets regularly again and works diligently on the program. Open Call for submissions with the theme “Outsiders” will open in June and we will inform you about the details soon!

We are really looking forward to rocking 2024 again 🙂

Foto by © Isabella Joech

ROTLICHT FESTIVAL

The Rotlicht Festival 2023 is over and we can look back on ten successful and exciting festival days.

The opening of the festival in the Atelierhaus of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna on November 17 was attended by more than 1000 visitors. The main exhibition was made up of the projects of the 20 winners of an international open call, 16 out of 20 of them had travelled from all over the world to the opening to celebrate the joint exhibition. Each day during the festival over 100 people visited the main exhibition, including the Photo Book Corner and Art Market.
In addition to the main exhibition, a total of 30 other photography exhibitions were opened in 13 Viennese districts during the festival period, some of which can be visited until the end of January 2024. Compared to the Rotlicht Festival 2022, we recorded an average of 30% more visitors at all partner locations.

And because it was so good, we are already working on the fourth edition of the Rotlicht Festival:
Save the date: 15.11.2024 to 25.11.2024
Submissions for the Open Call 2024 will be possible from spring.

As the Rotlicht Festival team, we would like to thank all visitors, artists, partner locations and other contributors – we as a team may coordinate the festival, but without all these people, none of this would be possible!

Video trailer from the opening of Rotlicht Festival can be seen here.

 

PROGRAM 2023

The program of ROTLICHT 2023 Festival for analog photography is ready:
Find all details on our exhibitions, talks, workshops and more events in our web program.

You like to have all information on one page? Here you find the PDF-Program of ROTLICHT 2023.

 

Take the program with you on your phone with our ROTLICHT app. You can find the app on Google Play and in the App Store.

GRAND PRIX WINNER:

ZUZANA PUSTAIOVÁ

This year’s artist with the highest jury ranking is the Bratislava based artist Zuzana Pustaiová (born 1990) with her project “Interlude” (2020). Her project is examining the current status of the allocation from the biological family and the formation of the new family. It is located somewhere in between social expectations, current emotional survival and the search for life direction. As the winner, one of her pictures will be featured on the cover of this year’s catalogue and our poster. She will also have a solo exhibition at the Ega Frauen im Zentrum in Vienna in 2023.

WINNERS 2023

On behalf of the entire team, we would like to thank you for all the great submissions. Our jury had the difficult decision to choose 20 winning projects between a total of 445 submissions from 44 countries. We are pleased to present you the winners and their projects of the Open Call 2023:

Rebekka Bauer(GER), Eleonor Calvelli(ITA), Jurgis Gečys(AUT), Milan Gies(NLD), Jana Gombiková(SVK), Daniel Hill(AUT), Artem Humilevskyi(UKR), Kei Ito(USA), Eva Kees(AUT), Lenka Lukačovičová(SVK), Auguste Marceau(AUT), Emilia Martin(NLD), Diane Meyer(USA), Nik Erik Neubauer(SVN), Mara Novak(AUT), Peter Pflügler(NLD), Zuzana Pustaiová(SVK), Kate Schultze(GER), Birte Zellentin & Patrik Budenz(GER), Yiming Zhu(GBR)

More information about the winners can be read here!

Rotlicht Festival 2023

ROTLICHT 2023

ROTLICHT is back on track, as the creative fixture of analog artistic photography in Central Europe. It will take place in Vienna for the third time this year from November 17-26.

Vienna is a metropolis for arts and creativity. With its history, its contrasts and spaces of inspiration, it has always been and still is a place of artistic debate. With this year’s edition of ROTLICHT Festival, we want to strengthen this concept of dialogue, dedicated to the artistic reflection in and through analog photography.

ROTLICHT Festival 2023 will be an event with a similar concept as in previous years. The Studio Building of the Academy of Fine Arts (former “Semperdepot”) will be the festival headquarters again, where the main exhibition is going to present the 20  winners (chosen by a 6-person international expert jury). The Open Call for the submission will open in June later this year.

Stay tuned on our progress in bringing ROTLICHT 2023 back to Vienna in mid November. Any news on our preparations will be announced here !

Rotlicht Festival - Open Call 2023

OPEN CALL 2023

Our main exhibition this year will take place in the impressive premises of the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. On over 1300 m2 we will open the festival with our 20 winners from the Open Call 2023. The theme of this year’s festival is »Zeitgeist« and your submission should be at least marginally related to this theme.

More information about the rules, as well as the Q&A, can be found here!

Jury 2023

JURY 2023

We are pleased to introduce you to our 2023 jury.

Meet the jury

Rovinj Photo Days 2023

ROVINJ PHOTO DAYS 2023

We are very happy to invite you to one of our partner festivals in the beautiful city of Rovinj. Our 20 winners from 2022 have been automatically added to the submissions. And look…5 of them are also selected in the different categories, congratulations! 

In the community of Italians of the city of Rovigno, the Rotlicht Festival has been given a special opportunity to curate an exhibition. We are pleased to show works by Alessandra D `Intino and Beatrice Signorello! 

More info: here
rotlicht_festival-pass

Y0UR FESTIVAL PASS HERE!

With your festival pass you get free access to all Rotlicht events, the festival headquarters and all live gigs in the clubs (except the workshops).

In addition, you will receive the 2022 catalog, hot off the press, which was produced for you in a limited edition.

Your purchase supports our work and makes the festival production possible. THANK YOU!

rotlicht-poster-program
Poster Image by Verena Andrea Prenner

THE FESTIVAL PR0GRAM IS READY!

Have a first glance on the program of ROTLICHT 2022.

Read more

Michaela_Nagyidaiova
Foto by Michaela Nagyidaiova

C0NGRATULATI0N T0 THE WINNERS 0F THE 0PEN CALL 2022!

Incredible 345 submissions from a total of 46 countries.

Read more

Rotlicht Festival, by Dino Rekanovic
Foto by Dino Rekanovic

JURY 2022

We are pleased to introduce you to our 2022 jury. For the first time, 5 analogue photo festivals have joined forces and this cooperation is reflected in the composition of our international jury.

Meet the jury

TEAM
Foto by Dino Rekanovic

FESTIVAL TEAM

The idea to organise an analogue photo festival came to us during the Lockdown in December 2020. Our goal is to establish an analogue photography scene in Vienna, to connect people with each other and to provide space for exchange.

Meet the team

Rotlicht Festival, Trailer

ROTLICHT 2021

We are very happy to give you a little insight into the 1st festival edition. A big thank you to all the helping hands, the great team and the participating artists. 

YouTube Video

Program 2021

PROGRAM 2021

Exhibitions | Workshops | Guided Tours | Walks | Archive Tours | Parties | Meet ups | Talks …

Read more

Festivalzentrale_Allan_Tavares
Foto by Allan Tavares

WINNER 2021

We are very proud to present the winners of the Open Call 2021. The winning images were displayed in our main exhibition at the opening of the 2021 Festival at our headquarters.