The ACF’s Cineclub will present the documentary Griffen to mark the 70th anniversary of Peter Handke, celebrated and controversial avant-garde Austrian playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and one of the most original German-language writers in the second half of the 20 th century.

In this documentary Austrian filmmaker Bernd Liepold-Mosser pays a visit to Griffen, a small town on the edge of the bilingual region (Austrian/Slovenian) in the southern Austrian province Carinthia, where both he and Peter Handke were born. Using encounters with locals he creates a portrait of the internationally renowned author and of a provincial backwater on Austria’s southern edge. Griffen was awarded the Diagonale Audience Prize in 2012. This profound and ironic film will provide the framework for a presentation by Dr Martin Brady, Lecturer in German and Film Studies at Kings College London, about the reception of Peter Handke in the UK.