mdw student Anna Buchegger took advantage of the COVID standstill to participate in the ORF casting show Starmania. And even after winning it with her own song Ease, the young singer remained true to her ideals: she immediately founded her own label and both produced and released her winning song on her own.

“What can we expect when we watch your movies at the cinema?” was the first question that mdw Magazine had for the Film Academy alumni Clara Stern and Peter Hengl. We quickly found out: before the audience can expect anything of their films, they’ll first have to fulfil their makers’ expectations—which are quite high indeed.

“Facing Ethnic Drag”, a long-planned mdw Gender Studies conference, had to be repeatedly postponed because of the pandemic. Finally, on June 17, it was at least possible to hold this year’s kick-off event on a virtual stage with a keynote by Jay Pather and an artist talk with Mamela Nyamza.

The final round of the competition “mdw Great Talent Award powered by Christian Zeller” was held on 20 May 2021 following a delay due to COVID-19.

Numerous factors—be they social, economic, or of some other nature—play significant roles in how we’ve been dealing with the situation that has faced us since March 2020. One of these significant factors is what we call “resilience”.

These days, whoever stresses the importance of writing in the university context—as did Otto Kruse, one of the pioneers of the discipline of composition studies—is kicking at an open door. For the discipline of writing has long since become a fixture in everyday student life—even at arts universities.

Joshua Jádi is a student at Film Academy Vienna. In the summer of 2020, he accompanied the Marš mira, an important annual event commemorating the war crimes in Srebrenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, together with a three-person film crew under the most unfavourable conditions.