Barbara Albert will present her current film “The Midday Woman” at the Gmunden Cinema on Tuesday, 6:45 p.m.

Austria is a small film country. Nevertheless, it produces art that enjoys great prestige around the world. It is said that the red-white-red show only started with the now 53-year-old Barbara Albert when the director came along in 1999 “North edge” at the Venice Film Festival.

Since this semester, the Viennese has had a full professorship in directing at the Vienna Film Academy, Austria’s talent factory. She follows Oscar winner Michael Haneke (81), who plays Umut Dag (“crime scene”, “Vienna Blood”) and Hüseyin Tabak (“Oscar’s dress”) trained. After Jessica Hausner, her former fellow student, Albert is only the second woman to hold such a position. “For me it is something absolutely amazing to be mentioned in the same breath as Haneke because for me he is a master.” But since the film country is so small, we know and appreciate each other like normal colleagues. “You are less likely to freeze in awe and are hardly afraid of contact.”

However, fear is a good keyword to talk about her professorship, which she only decided to accept after ten years as a directing professor at the German Film University Babelsberg “really ripe” felt: “The directing is very much about overcoming fear. And it is the enemy of all creativity.”

Why this job can cause fear? Because every feature film means a year-long commitment, arduous financing, a leadership role that has to unite numerous creative and technical departments for a collaborative effort, for which you lay your artistic soul bare and put your head down. It is therefore important to Albert that her students later “not coming from outside, but from within”and know, “what each trade does and how everything comes together”. To do this, she wants to strengthen the young people’s connection to the industry. Is it even possible to prepare young people for the pressure? “There is no easy answer here.”

She makes her absolute openness available and her support in finding out “what you get involved in”under what conditions you want to work, where your strengths lie and weaknesses for which you can get help. “You are not alone and you can share responsibility.”

What was it like for her when she was 29 with her first child? “North edge” was thrown into the limelight at the Lido? The social portrait was the first Austrian production in 51 years to be shown in competition at the film festival. “It wasn’t overwhelming, but rather a confirmation for me that I could be a director. One that came from outside and made me feel free. I approached everything with less fear.” The overwhelming demands came later, with her second feature film “Evil cells” (2003). “To be honest, there were much more critical looks.” To free herself from the pressure, she concentrated “Falling”a filmic sketch, on smaller. “That’s when I found my lightness again.”