"Salzburg? Rings a bell?" Mention the magic word, and music lovers the world over will probably launch into a long story. How they went to see the latest production of Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni ("… loved the singing. But the costumes, you know …") during the Salzburg Festival, bought themselves a Trachtenhut ("… gorgeous little number. Will come in really handy in winter…") and ended up eating too many Mozartkugeln ("have to go on a diet…"). Talk to beer aficionados that you went to Salzburg to taste Trumer Pils and they will give you THAT look: "Oh really?"

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Gottfried Helnwein, the Austrian painter, photographer, performance artist, stage and costume designer etc. is calling Los Angeles home since approximatley six years (in addition to Ireland, where he and his wife Renate own a castle in the county of Tipperary). As of lately, his work could be seen on stage in the L.A. Opera production of Richard Strauss ´Der Rosenkavalier´. Read more about Gottfried Helnwein, and what drives his artistic creation, in the conversation he held with Consul General Martin Weiss.

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Just in time for his 100th birthday this year, the Hammer Museum and UCLA Film & Television Archives will be opening the much-awaited Billy Wilder Theater in Westwood, complete with the most refined projection technology. This soon-to-become legendary venue is built around Billy's own seat and will house eclectic programming around cinema, the arts and contemporary issues. A well-deserved tribute to one of the all-time greatest Austrians in Hollywood.

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"You Bet Your Life - Spiele Leben" has just become Austria's Foreign language Oscar Entry for 2007. Here's the storyline of a brand-new film that critics have compared to such timeless disturbing movies as Jacques Demy's "Bay of Angels" or Godard's "Breathless": Gambling addict and slacker Kurt finds a crazy but absolutely infallible way to land in a major crisis. His house of cards collapses when he makes the encounter of his life, which leads to the gamble of his life – and forces him to gamble with his life. He falls victim to the delusion of letting dice dictate his fate. What he thinks will rescue him from the narrowness of his fate turns out to be a tyrant that drives him to the edge of his being.

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Austrian composer Gernot Wolfgang, while residing and composing for the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and the Beverly Hills International Music Festival somehow managed to find time for new explorations in his very personal musical space between chamber music and jazz. His conclusion is as simple as it is intriguing: there is common ground.

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Founded by two Austrian entrepreneurs - Roman Scharf and Daniel Mattes - Jajah is quickly becoming one of the world´s most innovative communications companies. With their vision of global communications without barriers in terms of devices, rates or location, Scharf and Mattes are tapping into the future: "We work globally, we think globally. We see a better future, where the people of the planet can talk to each other at at price they can afford. We don´t know that better communication wil make for a better planet, but we believe it will - and we know it can´t hurt."

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