Noch lange keine Lipizzaner (2025)

The film deals with the arduous process of integration, at the successful conclusion of which citizenship is granted. It is based on the experiences of the director, who was born and raised in Austria and holds Serbian citizenship, after she applied for Austrian citizenship. Olga Kosanović was born in Vienna in 1995 to Serbian parents and was therefore Serbian under Austrian law. Her application for Austrian citizenship was rejected in an eleven-page letter because, over the course of her life, she had spent a total of 58 days too long abroad, having studied in Germany and completed an exchange semester in Prague. This experience became the starting point for the film’s exploration of belonging, nation and identity. The film’s title refers to her appearance on a talk show about these subjects, after which someone on an online forum using the nickname Desert Eagle wrote: “If a cat gives birth to kittens at the Spanish Riding School, that doesn’t make them Lipizzaners.” In the Lipica stud farm in Slovenia, Arabian and Andalusian horses, as well as Italian stallions, were included in the breeding program. Although, “in international comparison, there are only two countries with more restrictive naturalization procedures than Austria, namely Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates,” the film ends with an orgiastic celebration after citizenship is granted. But this is only fictional: in the closing credits, the director says that she is still waiting to be naturalized.