Our Spirit: Inspiring movies. Inspiring people.
Cinema has always been more than just entertainment. At its best, it is a moral force – a mirror held up to society, a catalyst for empathy, a call to awareness and responsibility.
Throughout the history of film, visionary artists have proven that films can convey a message, inspire reflection, and shape the world in lasting ways. Film transcends borders, cultures, and ideologies – and in its finest form reminds us of what it truly means to be human. This is the spirit that defines the CALL Film Festival.
The CALL Film Festival: Films with a Message
The CALL Film Festival is an international festival that seeks to show films with a message and is dedicated to cinema that stands for attitude. From 2026 onwards, it will bring together each year films, filmmakers, and cultural pioneers who use storytelling as a force for responsibility, peace, and meaningful change.
We live in a time of global uncertainty – politically, socially, and ecologically. The CALL Film Festival responds to this situation by creating space for reflection and meaningful dialogue, using cinema as a shared global language.
Our Central Themes 2026: CALL for Nature. CALL for Peace.
The inaugural festival revolves around two central themes. Together, they reflect the two most essential aspirations of our time: peace – within ourselves and with others – and a shared responsibility for our world, our nature, and our planet.
CALL: A call, a voice, a mission.
The name CALL reflects our conviction that cinema, through artistic means, can speak to the world clearly, compellingly, and ethically. This festival is a call to artists and audiences alike to commit to what is good and to act consciously.
The films shown at the CALL Film Festival engage with social, human, cultural, and ecological questions – with depth, sensitivity, and integrity. Here, there are no neutral stories – only films that take a stand, raise awareness, or challenge positions. Rather than offering easy answers, these films are intended to invite reflection and dialogue. They encourage our audience to look more closely, to go deeper, and to consider how stories can foster awareness, empathy, and a sense of our shared humanity.
Welcome to the first CALL Film Festival!
Behind every good film, there are inspiring people. And inspiration is exactly what we need today more than ever.
When I founded the magazine CALL in 2015, I wanted to tell exciting stories about people who commit themselves to what is good – pioneers who show in their own field how we can all live more consciously, more committedly, better, and more happily.
One of the first stories that we produced back then, even for the zero issue, was with Reinhold Messner. CALL editor-in-chief Georg Kindel, who had known the mountaineer and boundary-pusher since the 1990s, met him in the autumn of 2015 on the Kronplatz in South Tyrol, at 2,275 metres above sea level. Messner immediately understood our claim „Inspiring People“ and the concept we were planning with CALL – and without hesitation, he was on board, even though the first print edition did not yet exist.
When, in the summer of 2025, we were filming with him and his wife Diane on the Helm in Sexten for the TV format „Berg- und Talfahrt“ (Ups and Downs) with Lilian Klebow for ServusTV – developed and produced by our PANAREA Studios – the circle was about to close. For when Georg told him, on the drive down a sandy mountain road from the Helm, about the plan for the first CALL Film Festival, and about the spontaneous idea of a cinematic Messner retrospective that had come to him during the journey, the mountaineer and boundary-pusher agreed there and then, still in the car.
Just under a year later, the time has come, and the first CALL Film Festival is set to launch. In a magical place that inspired me so much during a holiday in the Gasteinertal in summer 2024 that I spontaneously said: „This is where you have to put on a film festival.“ For the wonderfully warm welcome we received in Bad Hofgastein, my special thanks go to Eva Irnberger and Jürgen Bess, the outstanding tourism leaders of the town and the region.
I am very pleased that my friend Elisabeth Sereda (pictured on the left) is on board as my co-founder and co-festival director. Not only did she play a leading role in organising the Golden Globes for more than two decades – I also do not know anyone who understands as much about film, and about the mechanisms that lead a good film to success, as she does.
Welcome to the Gasteinertal, welcome to the OFF, is all I can say. I would be delighted to welcome you in person to Bad Hofgastein from 28–31 May 2026.
Yours
Christina Zappella-Kindel
Organiser of the CALL Film Festival,
Editor & Publisher of CALL. Inspiring People.
