Documentaries are once again out in force at this year's Diagonale - Festival of Austrian Film which will open in Graz on March 19 with Sabine Derflinger's 42 plus.

The documentaries selected to screen over the six days of the festival - one day longer than last year - include Susanne Freund's portrait of Alma Mahler-Werfel in Big Alma, Sudabeh Mortezai's Children Of The Prophet tracing her Iranian roots, Gerald Igor Hauzenberger's Beyond The Forest (Einst Suesse Heimat) about a forgotten German-speaking enclave in Romania, Elisabeth Scharang's Meine Liebe Republik about a Nazi doctor and one of his victims meeting one another again in 1975, Miriam Unger's Vienna's Lost Daughters about eight women of Jewish origin forced to emigrate to the USA in 1938-39, Sophie Fiennes' The Pervert's Guide To Cinema, and Frederick Baker's Shadowing The Third Man.

Meanwhile, feature films programmed by the Diagonale's festival director Birgit Flos in this annual showcase of Austrian production include Stefan Ruzowitzky's Berlinale competition film The Counterfeiters, Antonin Svoboda's Immer Nie Am Meer - which opened in Austrian cinemas last week -, Peter Kern's Viennese variation on Jean Genet's Un Chant D'Amour, Die Toten Koerper Der Lebenden, Manu Luksch's Faceless as well as Barbara Albert's Fallen, Michael Glawogger's Slumming and Andreas Prochaska's In 3 Tagen Bist Du Tot.

Moreover, this year's edition, which is celebrating its tenth anniversary of being staged in Graz, will have several sidebars and retrospectives to complement the main film programme, including spotlights on the Crossing Europe festival in Linz and the DokMa documentary film festival in Slovenia's Maribor as well as screenings of all seven films commissioned by Simon Field and Keith Griffiths for the New Crowned Hope Festival in Vienna last year.

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