The Zur Person series reflects on Austrian film and cinema culture by tracing the biography of acclaimed Austrian filmmakers. This year’s film program, from April 6 to 10, 2022, is devoted to the internationally acclaimed duo Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel, who most recently received, among other awards, the Grand Diagonale Prize Documentary Film for Notes from the Underworld, thus being honored for the fourth time in a main category of the festival.
On the occasion of the Viennale 2020, directors Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel presented to the audience their newest film, Notes from the Underworld (original title: Aufzeichnungen aus der Unterwelt), already selected at the Berlinale 2020, within the Panorama section. Cinema Austriaco had the opportunity to meet them and learn more about this new work and, more generally, about their career and their way of relating to the seventh art. Interview by Marina Pavido.
Photography and cinema of reality in its purest sense are the pillars of The Photographer in front of the Camera. And once again, the unique directorial approach of Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel, made up of moments of observation and discreet following, succeeded in making us feel part of a world we knew only vaguely.
The faces of those who have witnessed different historical periods one after the other, hands intent on handling old card decks, cosy little taverns and cheerful choirs of old friends enjoying themselves singing – with the accompaniment of an accordion – old traditional Viennese songs are the true soul of Notes from the Underworld, the newest work by documentary filmmakers Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel.
