Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe by Maria Schrader and starring a great Josef Hader is a biopic that consciously rejects any pre-established pattern and that in its apparent simplicity soon reveals itself to be far more complex and layered than it might initially seem.
In Andrea Gets a Divorce, Josef Hader’s second feature film as a director, comedy and tragedy are constantly alternating, mixing and merging within a mature and intelligent work. At the Berlinale 2024, Panorama section.
At the Berlinale 2024, Josef Hader will premiere Andrea gets a Divorce, his second feature film as director. Considered to be Austria’s greatest cabaret artist ever, Hader has achieved numerous successes throughout his career, especially in German-speaking countries.
No one is really innocent in Life eternal. And even if past faults come to the surface, we gradually discover that those whom we initially considered to be completely negative, also have a tender and friendly nature after all.
No one is really innocent or completely guilty in Hold-Up. Or, better still, each of the three characters is both victim and executioner at the same time. And this feature film by Florian Flicker stands out above all for its good screenplay, thanks to which moments of tension cleverly alternate with much more light-hearted scenes.
Although Aufschneider stands out immediately for its television-like writing and directorial approach, everything flows in an overall linear way. Every single event, every single story of the characters are somehow connected. Often, however, also in an excessively predictable manner.
Once were Rebels immediately presents itself as an ambivalent feature film. If, on the one hand, comedy and paradox reign for almost the entire running time of the film, on the other hand, it soon becomes an analysis of love and family relationships, as well as of the living conditions of some refugees from Russia, who are wanted solely for having tried to defend their freedom.
In Blue Moon, we witness, with the structure of a road movie, a tender love story with thriller overtones, in which two cultures and two distinct worlds – East and West – meet, and which gradually discover that they have much more in common than it might initially seem.
In Nikolaus Leytner’s Half a Life, alongside a clear television character, far more complex moral issues concerning anger, resentment, deep sorrow and, last but not least, a heartbreaking sense of guilt are raised.
Although Cappuccino Melange, in order to accentuate the differences between the two protagonists, plays a lot on clichés, often excessively caricaturing its characters and sometimes even seeming excessive and unbelievable, on the whole the adventures of the two bizarre protagonists work. And they do so especially in the details.