Free to Leave (2007)

A long time-span of Austrian history (from the late 19th century to the years after world war II) is reflected in the ups and downs of a family of piano-makers in Vienna.

Film de sketches que giran en torno al mensaje del título.

The film presents the political events surrounding the Anschluss in March of 1938 through the lives of Carola Hell, a popular young actress at the prestigious Theater in der Josefstadt, and Martin Hofmann, the Jewish journalist she plans to marry. When we encounter the couple in the lovely springtime weather their future is full of promise. They are determined to stay clear of politics. Yet in the climate of the time, nobody of her prominence or his religion can remain apolitical. Although Martin's journalist friend, Drechsler, calls to inform them that the Nazis plan to take over Austria soon, they concentrate on their work and their private happiness and dismiss the warnings.

Francis Ratay witnesses the theft of church painting "Angel with violin". The entire incident recorded by an amateur camera. The thief turns out to Benedict Weber, gallery owner and art connoisseur. Francis comes to his gallery. Blackmails him, that will provide police record, unless the image in three days back in place.

Fred, the nephew of a senator,has murdered a Black man on a train. The two only witnesses are Lizzie McKay, a prostitute from New York, and Sidney, a colored man. Fred decides to seduce Lizzie in order to make her give false evidence according to which Sidney has attempted to rape her. The uncle also puts pressure on the young woman. After much hesitation, Lizzie finally accepts but Sidney, who has nearly got lynched, takes refuge at her home...

In a village near a deadly mountain ascent the people repeatedly have to help climbers in danger who didn't make it to the top, in fact nobody made it yet up there. Hansi Knoteck can't stand anymore the danger after a member of the rescue party dies and demands from Attila Hörbiger that he steps back from participating in his rescue efforts. Finally he relents but the villagers ostracize them. In the meantime Winnie Markus tries to seduce Richard Häußler who makes the life for his wife Viktoria von Ballasko a hell through his infidelities.

The engineer MacAllan designs a tunnel, which will join America and Europe together on the seabed. A group of American billionaires are financing the gigantic project, but the construction of the tunnel is proving to be as tedious as it is dangerous. MacAllan's worst enemy is the speculator Woolf, who had embezzled the money for the construction and who is attempting to cover up his crime by carrying out acts of sabotage. Also filmed in 1933 in a French-language version, LE TUNNEL, and remade in 1935 in England as TRANSATLATIC TUNNEL.

With sometimes painful directness, Valie Export conducts a psychological investigation of the body in this film performance, externalizes an internal state. In front of a police photo showing two children who were sexually abused by their parents, she tortuously cuts into her cuticles until blood drips into a bowl of milk on her lap. On top of the symbolic plane of blood and milk, the physical effect on the viewer of her destructive act of self-mutilation is extreme.

In a small army base at the Eastern border of Austria a young recruit is trained to be a soldier to protect his country in case of war. He has to stay for 8 months and during this time he escapes in his own fantasy world...

Zbigniew Rybczinski's video experiments set to classical music pieces.

Released from prison a man wanders through a new reality

Shiva Kumar re-locates to Mumbai to live with his brother, and joins the police force. However, he befriends a rebel journalist hoping to expose the corruption of the force he works for.

Dirigida por André Erkau.

The seedy underbelly of Vienna at night. Mercedes is a femme fatale from Mexico, newly arrived at the Vienna airport with her German boyfriend Rainer, where they have smuggled a kilo of cocaine through customs. Unfortunately for them, the city has just had a major drug crackdown, leaving them without buyers and money. Disgusted with Rainer, Mercedes ditches him and hooks up with Harry, a lonely and bored cab driver who agrees to help her find a buyer for the drugs so she can get some cash and go home. She offers Harry a deal he can't refuse. Is he just another pawn for Mercedes or will her promises help him achieve his hope and dreams? The story careens through the night streets of Vienna, following two amateurs navigating their way through the treacherous world of the drug trade. It's a mood piece with the backdrop of a stifling urban loneliness.

This film is based on the actual events referred to as the "Mühlviertler Hasenjagd" (Hare-hunt in the Mühlviertel) which occurred in February 1945 around the Mauthausen concentration camp. 500 Soviet officers form death block 20 attempt to escape, but only 150 of them actually succeed. Following the tally-ho of the SS, a barbaric manhunt begins. Only very few fugitives survive. With a lot of good luck, the two young officers Michail and Nikolai reach the Karner family's farm. Frau Karner persuades her husband to hide the two escapees.

Based on a novel by Mordecai Richler, allegedly his autobiography, it tells the story of a Jewish writer, from his life as a young boy in Montreal to his more complicated grown-up life.