Hans Wiesinger

The sun blazes down from the sky with destructive power; exposing oneself to its light means death. People have transposed everyday existence to the night. In the metropolis of HALF WORLD a culture based on various languages and lifeforms has grown rampant. Everyone is looking for a way to survive.

THE ELECTION CAMPAIGNERS tries to analyse the phenomenon of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ). The party’s great success is generally regarded as a result of its leader’s demonic charisma. But this film doesn’t focus on Jörg Haider. Instead it gives a face to the people who make Haider’s election victories possible, taking a clear stance, yet refraining from commentary or judgement. It is up to the viewers to draw their own conclusions.

In the beginning was the rhythm, then came the melody, or vice versa. At least this is the case in Vienna, where, in the quarter of Alt-Erlaa, one of the most multi-facetted musicians of the free jazz scene, Walter Malli, has his home.

A portrait of the poet Jana Černá, daughter of Franz Kafka's lover Milena Jesenská. Behind the bright facade on contemporary Prague, with its travel agencies and McDonalds, there is a tunnel leading to the world behind the postcards. Here, Jana's friends, Prague freaks, poets and philosophers, tell of this exceptional, passionate woman. With the surreal humour of Prague and with a little nostalgia they recall Jana Černá's excesses, her inability to follow rules, and her magnificent lies...

Why does Fred look like Charly who looks like Gernot who looks like Udo who looks like Erwin who looks like Leopold who resembles Ferdinand?

1969. The Prague Spring has been demolished. New barbed wire installations have been erected. Julia, who is thirteen, has moved with her mother to a village in northern Austria which lies on the Czech border. Julia has not spoken since her father's death. Her isolation increases in the village where she is an outsider. Provoked into proving her courage by some young villagers, she walks into no-man's land. She discovers a forgotten tunnel which leads to a construction site on the Czech side of the border. Julia makes the acquaintance of Roland, a forty-five-year-old surveyor, on "the other side". An ambivalent father-daughter relationship develops between them. Roman is the only one to whom she confides the secret of her border crossings. Due to his affection for her, she regains her ability to speak. And she starts to feel at ease with Alexander, who is her age. Roman makes new plans at Julia's urging. The insurmountable border foritfications will remain vulnerable . . .

After a car accident, Sebastian contracts an uncanny sleeping sickness. Every day he sleeps a minute longer than the preceding day. Sebastian attempts to find out on his own what sleep is.

When the busses left, the nurse said to the children, 'Today you have to pray a lot, because today you go up the chimney and meet the good Lord.' The children of the area knew these vehicles and said, 'Look, there is another one of these killer busses.' And they said to one another, ' You are not very clever, you, too, are going to end up in the oven in Hartheim, you, too, will be hung up in the chimney.' Hartheim Castle near Linz was one of several places of destruction of 'unworthy life' within the framework of the euthanasia program of National Socialism. Over 30,000 mentally or physically handicapped, psychiatric patients and inmates of concentration camps were gassed in Hartheim between 1940 and 1945. Today Hartheim Castle is rented and inhabited. In a place where 40 years ago thousands if lives were destroyed by industrial methods, today life asserts itself in the trite daily function of living. The documentation is about Hartheim Castle, in the past and in the present.

Idomeneus, King of Crete, one of the great heroes during the total destruction of the famous city of Troy was sailing back to his realm when a terrible storm broke loose near the city of Sidon. The storm was of such violence that in his fear Idomeneus made a solemn promise to Neptune, God of the Seas, to sacrifice the first person -no matter who it be- that he would meet on the shore if he and his people would only get there safely.