Wernfried Natter

Trixi Jancik leads a risky double life. At home, she is an obedient housewife. But when she puts on a disguise and goes to the racetrack to indulge in her secret passion, she catches a glimpse of a better life. Although she blows her grocery money, she has tasted the kind of luxury she can normally only dream about. A minor squabble at home brings the situation to a head and marks a turning point in her life: Trixi fixes her husband a lethal cocktail of pills.

Vienna, 1995. Jasmin, Tamara, Valentin, Senad and Roman live near the northern border of Austria. Their lives repeatedly intersect and drift apart. The characters involved are young migrants from the former Yugoslavia, Romania, Poland and Austria itself. Strangers in a strange land, they feel a sense of loss in their new, temporary environment. The five-some meet and get close to each other, hopelessly clinging to friendships and relationships with no future. They frequent cafés and train stations dreaming of a better tomorrow. Often, they just fall back on the prospect of short-term affection in yet another doomed romantic or sexual encounter. Trying hard to suppress the memories of war and alienation, they try to find moral strength and warmth through one another.

Nana Iaschwili, a teacher from East Europe, wants to emigrate to America to start a new life. After landing in Vienna, the authorities notice her falsified visa and arrest her. Nana, threatened with deportation, would prefer anything except being sent back and escapes. She must keep on the move constantly. The police are hot on her trail. Together with other illegal aliens, Nana, alias "Suzie Washington", flees to the so-called "green border", the no-man's-land between East and West. The police, cows and lonely men keep getting in her way.

Dölken, Ivo and Sichel, three amiable and harmless inmates of a mental asylum are off to spend the summer in an open institution in the country. The trip they have been looking forward to for so long ends abruptly when the driver of their bus suffers a heart attack. The three men quite naturally assume that they have reached their destination and find somewhere to stay in the nearest village.

The lives of a Serb family are torn apart by the pressures of the not-too-distant war with the Croats. The film addresses the fundamental question "Can love survive between political enemies?"

Disappointed by failed relationships and the demands set by local women, more and more Austrians search for happiness in a marriage with women from Thailand and the Philippines. Asked about the positive properties of their Asian spouses, the answer of the Austrian husbands quite often is, "They don't talk back." Protagonist of the film is Karl S., a teacher in Vienna in his forties. Following his failed marriage he is now seeking a durable partnership and is on the lookout for a wife who doesn't question her traditional role. His solution: a wife from the Far East. Karl S. rounds up experiences and visits several mixed couples to get a clearer picture and to have his idea proven right. The film accompanies him on his search for the ideal woman and gives an insight into the imagination of these "last real men" who at the beginning seem to have hit the jackpot with their decisions

Lisa has grown up in an orphanage. She is looking forward to her adoption, as she doesn't know that her new parents are about to divorce. The Saber-toothed cat which she meets in a museum intervenes as a "feles ex machina".

The story tells of a love which after ten years is beginning to grow old, and of the attempt to turn the imminent end into a new beginning. After ten years of eventful relationship, man and woman have finally decided to say yes to each other in an abandoned railway station on the edge of town. It is the first evening in their new home. Everything is temporary, nothing is finished. The furniture has not yet been delivered, the heating is not functioning yet, the telephone is not connected, neither is the television. They are inescapably confronted with their own selves and with each other. And although, at least at the beginning, they fervently strive for love and harmony, the past catches up with them. When he, as always, seeks to withdraw by taking flight, he discovers that his key does not fit. He is at her mercy. Ruthlessly, they call each other to account.

In the 16th century, young men put themselves in great danger to look for mysterious crystals in a tunnel in the Styrian Erzberg. Some of them never returned from searching for this symbol of perfect love. In the 20th century, the student Barbara tries to pursue this legend of her home town.

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 day to day life of a boy and a farm hand working a farm in the middle of nowhere.