ANIMAL LOVE
In Animal Love, there are some deeply shocking moments in which anger and sadness get the better of us. Ulrich Seidl’s legendary irony is a little less powerful here, although it is still clearly present.
Film director: Ulrich Seidl
ONE FORTY
One Forty aims directly at the essentials and in telling us about the life of Karl Wallner initiates a much broader and more complex discourse. All this, as we can well imagine, with Ulrich Seidl’s characteristic approach.
THE LAST REAL MEN
In The Last Real Men, Ulrich Seidl’s camera remains constantly fixed on showing us the protagonists as they recount in turn their experiences. For almost the entire documentary, as often happens in his work, reality is shown to us as it is. And in showing itself as it is, it comes out with all its absurdity and ridiculousness, revealing itself to be much more dangerous than it might initially appear.
PARADISE: FAITH
Paradise: Faith shows us not only religious fanaticism in one of its most extreme forms. No. In Paradise: Faith, in fact, Ulrich Seidl shows us religion lived in a maniacal way that almost seems to forget the value of human beings themselves. Special Jury Prize at the 2012 Venice Film Festival.
PARADISE: LOVE
In Paradise: Love we find all the constants of Ulrich Seidl’s cinema in a deeply intelligent, painful and merciless work. The cynicism and hypocrisy of human beings, the difference between social classes, but also – and above all – a deep loneliness and a desperate need for love are the absolute protagonists. Can there ever be an even faint chance of salvation? The director seems to have no doubt about it.
WICKED GAMES RIMINI SPARTA
Wicked Games Rimini Sparta, through the story of three people, immediately becomes a picture of the era in which we live, of a sick world in which everyone seems to be hopelessly alone, destined never to find the longed-for serenity. At the Diagonale’23.
WAR IN VIENNA
A cynical and disillusioned perspective focuses mainly on the numerous paradoxes that come to life when different realities are shown to us one after the other. We laugh a lot, we laugh almost from beginning to end, while watching War in Vienna. Yet, on closer inspection, what we are shown is quite disturbing. At the Viennale 2022, section Österreich real.
SPARTA
A strong inner conflict is the real focus of Sparta. Ewald laughs when he plays with the children. Slowly, however, his laughter turns into a cry. A cry that nobody notices, that only vents inside a car or in the retirement home where his father is. Subtle facial expressions say more than a thousand words. Ulrich Seidl (and the excellent Georg Friedrich) render all this perfectly and show us how the protagonist is actually the only real victim of his own weaknesses. At the Viennale 2022.
HAKUNA MATATA
With a few simple shots and a single sentence repeated over and over again, Ulrich Seidl has fully conveyed the essence of his entire filmography. In Hakuna Matata – part of the collective project Venezia 70 Future Reloaded, realised on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Venice Film Festival – there is no need for anything else.
THE BOSOM FRIEND
In The Bosom Friend Ulrich Seidl has once again given us a character we will not easily forget. A character who almost seems to belong to a world apart and who – according to some of the director’s own statements – after having renounced all forms of earning a living or social relationships, may also have found freedom in his own way.