The unique contribution of Austrian avant-garde film to world cinema is widely acknowledged. This is the first book in English dedicated to its historical and aesthetic evolution. The expansive introductory essay by the editor provides a detailed overview of avant-garde film production in Austria, followed by twenty contributions from international film scholars who engage with the work of individual filmmakers. Beginning with the pioneers of independent filmmaking in post-war Austria, the book covers more than 60 years of subversive motion picture history: from Peter Kubelka's ground-breaking metric films of the 1950s to Kurt Kren's rapid-fire actionist films in the 1960s and subsequent time studies, from Valie Export's feminist cinema to Lisl Ponger's explorations of alternative ethnographies, from the exhilarating found footage works of Martin Arnold and Peter Tscherkassky to the recent generation of younger artists such as Michaela Grill and Siegfried Fruhauf whose innovative work also embraces digital technology.

Contributors include Steve Anker, Steve Bates, Livio Belloï, Christa Blümlinger, Nicole Brenez, Stefan Grissemann, Christoph Huber, Adrian Martin, Maya McKechneay, Maureen Turim, Norbert Pfaffenbichler, Andréa Picard, Barbara Pichler, Bert Rebhandl, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Hans Scheugl, and the editor.