“Welcome to Siegheilkirchen” not only honors Manfred Deix, one of Austria’s most revered cartoonists and satirists, it also marks the country’s first ever animated feature film.
Unspooling in Gala Premieres at the Zurich Film Festival, the film follows a kid whose immense talent for drawing gives him an outlet for his discontent while growing up in a small conservative Austrian town, where Nazi sympathy is still very prevalent. Deix initially worked on the project as art director before his death in 2016.
For Marcus H. Rosenmüller, “Welcome to Siegheilkirchen” has been long in the making. It was the first animated film for the celebrated German filmmaker, who joined the project nearly a decade ago after producers Josef Aichholzer and Ernst Geyer convinced Deix of making a film based on his work and partly inspired by his life.
Development on the film took several years and the process became a learning experience for Rosenmüller,...
Unspooling in Gala Premieres at the Zurich Film Festival, the film follows a kid whose immense talent for drawing gives him an outlet for his discontent while growing up in a small conservative Austrian town, where Nazi sympathy is still very prevalent. Deix initially worked on the project as art director before his death in 2016.
For Marcus H. Rosenmüller, “Welcome to Siegheilkirchen” has been long in the making. It was the first animated film for the celebrated German filmmaker, who joined the project nearly a decade ago after producers Josef Aichholzer and Ernst Geyer convinced Deix of making a film based on his work and partly inspired by his life.
Development on the film took several years and the process became a learning experience for Rosenmüller,...
- 9/26/2021
- by Ed Meza
- Variety Film + TV
Picture Tree International has picked up world sales rights to animated feature “Snotty Boy,” which will world premiere in the main competition section of the Annecy Film Festival. The film is produced by Josef Aichholzer, whose credits include Oscar winner “The Counterfeiters.” Picture Tree has released the first trailer.
“Snotty Boy” is based on the art and childhood of Austrian artist Manfred Deix, whose admirers included Hollywood director Billy Wilder. It is set in the 1960s in the reactionary and ultra-Catholic village of Siegheilkirchen, where the gifted son of a hard-working innkeeper, called Snotty Boy, saves the live of the ravishingly pretty Mariolina from the malicious persecution by the village’s rightwing political die-hards.
The film is directed by Spaniard Santiago Lopez Jover, whose credits as an animator include “A Hologram for the King” and “Song of the Sea,” and Germany’s Marcus H. Rosenmüller, who directed “The Keeper” (Trautmann) and “Grave Decisions,...
“Snotty Boy” is based on the art and childhood of Austrian artist Manfred Deix, whose admirers included Hollywood director Billy Wilder. It is set in the 1960s in the reactionary and ultra-Catholic village of Siegheilkirchen, where the gifted son of a hard-working innkeeper, called Snotty Boy, saves the live of the ravishingly pretty Mariolina from the malicious persecution by the village’s rightwing political die-hards.
The film is directed by Spaniard Santiago Lopez Jover, whose credits as an animator include “A Hologram for the King” and “Song of the Sea,” and Germany’s Marcus H. Rosenmüller, who directed “The Keeper” (Trautmann) and “Grave Decisions,...
- 5/20/2021
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
The Waldheim Waltz director Ruth Beckermann on getting the footage of Kurt Waldheim before he delivers his presidential acceptance speech: "This was really a lucky moment."
In the final instalment of my conversation with Ruth Beckermann on The Waldheim Waltz, Austria's Oscar submission for the 91st Academy Awards, we discussed her filmmaking style (for The Dreamed Ones on the letters of Paul Celan and Ingeborg Bachmann; Those Who Go Those Who Stay on chance encounters; Paper Bridge on Beckermann's family; Return To Vienna with Josef Aichholzer; East Of War), the Waldheim family, the historians, and the archival footage that included a "lucky moment" finding Kurt Waldheim preparing, minutes before he delivered his televised presidential acceptance speech.
We met at the Hudson, the former American Woman's Association clubhouse, that was turned into a hotel. It was renovated by designer Philippe Starck and Ian Schrager, co-owner of Studio 54, who is featured in Matt Tyrnauer's documentary.
In the final instalment of my conversation with Ruth Beckermann on The Waldheim Waltz, Austria's Oscar submission for the 91st Academy Awards, we discussed her filmmaking style (for The Dreamed Ones on the letters of Paul Celan and Ingeborg Bachmann; Those Who Go Those Who Stay on chance encounters; Paper Bridge on Beckermann's family; Return To Vienna with Josef Aichholzer; East Of War), the Waldheim family, the historians, and the archival footage that included a "lucky moment" finding Kurt Waldheim preparing, minutes before he delivered his televised presidential acceptance speech.
We met at the Hudson, the former American Woman's Association clubhouse, that was turned into a hotel. It was renovated by designer Philippe Starck and Ian Schrager, co-owner of Studio 54, who is featured in Matt Tyrnauer's documentary.
- 10/19/2018
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
- Tales from the Golden Age's Cristian Mungiu and Ioana Uricaru (one of the several co-directors that participated in the deadpan, short film collage on some of the blunders in Romanian's past) have collaborated on a screenplay that they have handed to fellow Romanian filmmaker Bogdan Apetri. This is Apetri's feature length debut. Shooting on Outskirts began this week and he is working with Marius Panduru (who worked on Cannes-winning Policie, Adjective and Berlin Film Fest-winning The Happiest Girl in the World) this is about the people who inhabit the neighborhoods of Bucharest, who are caught in this strange and claustrophobic space. Alexandru Teodorescu and Daniel Burlac are producing, while Josef Aichholzer is co-producing. With the exception of Tales, this is the first time that Mungiu (featured above) writes a screenplay that he didn't direct. Apetri's roadmap includes a stopover at Columbia University where he studied directing and cinematography,
- 7/2/2009
- IONCINEMA.com
NEW YORK -- Sony Pictures Classics has nabbed North American rights to German drama The Counterfeiters, a true story about a money-manufacturing operation set up by the Nazis.
The film, from writer-director Stefan Ruzowitzky, last week received seven Lola nominations, including best feature.
Ruzowitzky, whose credits include 1998's The Inheritors and 2000's Anatomie, adapted the film from Adolf Burger's memoirs The Devil's Workshop.
The film stars Karl Markovics, who plays the head of a counterfeiting operation, and David Striesow, who plays the superintendent who arrests Markovics' character and then puts him in charge of an effort to produce fake foreign currency.
The film was produced by Nina Bohlmann, Babette Schroeder and Josef Aichholzer and co-produced by Caroline von Senden, Henning Molfenter and Carl L. Woebcken.
The acquisition reteams SPC with Beta Cinema, with which it made a deal for the German film The Lives of Others, which won the Oscar last month for best foreign-language film.
SPC's Michael Barker, Tom Bernard and Dylan Leiner negotiated the deal with Dirk Schuerhoff of Beta Cinema.
The film, from writer-director Stefan Ruzowitzky, last week received seven Lola nominations, including best feature.
Ruzowitzky, whose credits include 1998's The Inheritors and 2000's Anatomie, adapted the film from Adolf Burger's memoirs The Devil's Workshop.
The film stars Karl Markovics, who plays the head of a counterfeiting operation, and David Striesow, who plays the superintendent who arrests Markovics' character and then puts him in charge of an effort to produce fake foreign currency.
The film was produced by Nina Bohlmann, Babette Schroeder and Josef Aichholzer and co-produced by Caroline von Senden, Henning Molfenter and Carl L. Woebcken.
The acquisition reteams SPC with Beta Cinema, with which it made a deal for the German film The Lives of Others, which won the Oscar last month for best foreign-language film.
SPC's Michael Barker, Tom Bernard and Dylan Leiner negotiated the deal with Dirk Schuerhoff of Beta Cinema.
- 3/20/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
BERLIN -- Based on a true story, "The Counterfeiters" has a fantastic element that makes you realize that there are still stories about concentration camps that are new and fresh.
In this case, it is "Operation Bernhard", which occupied a couple of cell blocks in the Sachenhausen camp, where the Nazis put professional specialists -- all Jews -- to work counterfeiting identity papers, passports but especially the currency of the Allies. The idea was to flood financial markets with counterfeit pounds and dollars to destabilize those economies and replenish Nazi coffers.
The drama here, only slightly fictionalized, centers on the "king of the counterfeiters," a Russian Jew named Salomon "Sally" Sorowitsch; a passionate anti-Nazi and fellow counterfeiter Adolf Burger, who does everything he can to sabotage the effort; and wily Commandant Friedrich Herzog, whose own well being relies on the success of the operation.
The German-Austrian film, in Competition here, seems a natural for art houses and even, in Europe, mainstream cinemas. North American distribution is a distinct possibility.
Austrian director Stefan Ruzowitzky's script is based on Burger's memoir, "The Devil's Workshop," but he makes no bones about the fact that his fascination lies not with Burger but the enigmatic Sorowitsch. Here is a man who plays everything in life close to the vest. Survival is his way of thumbing his nose at the Nazis, but he fails to calculate what can only be called the downside of survival.
The movie is book-ended with a sequence in Monte Carlo at war's end involving this man. The story quickly flashes back to 1936 Berlin where Sorowitsch (a very angular and often expressionless Karl Markovics) displays himself as an artist and bon vivant. But rather than earn money by making art, he says he prefers to make money by simply making money. All this comes to an abrupt end when he is arrested by an underworld acquaintance, Herzog (Devid Striesow), who turns out to be a police inspector.
Sally survives several years in the camps through his artistic skills, painting loving portraits of Nazi families or patriotic murals. Then his old friend Herzog recruits him for the "Golden Cage" in Sachenhausen. Here inmates are bribed with soft beds, good food, classical music and even medical attention. In return, they are to use their collective skills to forge money for the now bankrupt Third Reich.
To Sorowitsch, this is a challenge to his artistry as well as a pragmatic means of survival. To fellow prisoner Burger (August Diehl) though, their efforts are helping to finance the Nazi war machine. Thus natural survival instincts come up against the moral price one is willing to pay.
The two come to an unspoken agreement: Sorowitsch will continue to fabricate perfect forgeries, while Burger will continue to screw up the gelatin needed for printing. Sorowitsch refuses to rat out a fellow prisoner, but not all prisoners, having grown morally and spiritually soft, agree. Death threats in concentration camps must be taken seriously.
Even more intriguing is the absolutely poisonous and sycophantic relationship between Sally and Herzog. As Herzog, Striesow has an oily smile that is frightening to behold. Never has a smile held less mirth. It's absolutely toxic yet Sorowitsch takes it as a challenge -- both to his counterfeiting skills and his skills at staying alive. As the winds of war shift, Herzog's smile takes on new meaning, for Sorowitsch has become his passport, so to speak, to escaping the Allies.
Ruzowitzky builds suspense and deepens character relationships as the tension mounts. He has cinematographer Benedict Neeuenfels create a very grainy look while filling the soundtrack with Italian operettas and other Mediterranean-flavored music that one does not associate with concentration camps. This makes for a dislocation, where brutality and cruelty can exist just beyond a wooden fence where the counterfeiters play ping-pong, but the well-fed men can learn to shut their ears to the screams and gunshots.
The question of survival vs. martyrdom is never really answered, nor can it be. In the end, one can conclude from this story that both sides are right. The delaying tactics of the counterfeiters actually worked. But as Sorowitsch sits on that lonely Monte Carlo beach and heads for the casino, the enormity of what happened to him hits him in the solar plexus.
The Counterfeiters
Magnolia Filmproduktion and Aichholzer Film in a co-production with ZDF and Babelsberg Film
Credits
Writer-director: Stefan Ruzowitzky
Based on the book by: Adolf Burger
Producers: Josef Aichholzer, Nina Bohlmann, Babette Schroder
Director of photography: Benedict Neuenfels
Production designer: Isidor Wimmer
Music: Marius Ruhland
Costume designer: Nicole Fischnaller
Editor: Britta Nahler
Cast:
Salomon Sorowitsch: Karl Markovics
Burger: August Diehl
Herzog: Devid Striesow
Holst: Martin Brambach
Dr. Klinger: August Zirner
Aglaia: Marie Baumer
No MPAA rating, running time 98 minutes...
In this case, it is "Operation Bernhard", which occupied a couple of cell blocks in the Sachenhausen camp, where the Nazis put professional specialists -- all Jews -- to work counterfeiting identity papers, passports but especially the currency of the Allies. The idea was to flood financial markets with counterfeit pounds and dollars to destabilize those economies and replenish Nazi coffers.
The drama here, only slightly fictionalized, centers on the "king of the counterfeiters," a Russian Jew named Salomon "Sally" Sorowitsch; a passionate anti-Nazi and fellow counterfeiter Adolf Burger, who does everything he can to sabotage the effort; and wily Commandant Friedrich Herzog, whose own well being relies on the success of the operation.
The German-Austrian film, in Competition here, seems a natural for art houses and even, in Europe, mainstream cinemas. North American distribution is a distinct possibility.
Austrian director Stefan Ruzowitzky's script is based on Burger's memoir, "The Devil's Workshop," but he makes no bones about the fact that his fascination lies not with Burger but the enigmatic Sorowitsch. Here is a man who plays everything in life close to the vest. Survival is his way of thumbing his nose at the Nazis, but he fails to calculate what can only be called the downside of survival.
The movie is book-ended with a sequence in Monte Carlo at war's end involving this man. The story quickly flashes back to 1936 Berlin where Sorowitsch (a very angular and often expressionless Karl Markovics) displays himself as an artist and bon vivant. But rather than earn money by making art, he says he prefers to make money by simply making money. All this comes to an abrupt end when he is arrested by an underworld acquaintance, Herzog (Devid Striesow), who turns out to be a police inspector.
Sally survives several years in the camps through his artistic skills, painting loving portraits of Nazi families or patriotic murals. Then his old friend Herzog recruits him for the "Golden Cage" in Sachenhausen. Here inmates are bribed with soft beds, good food, classical music and even medical attention. In return, they are to use their collective skills to forge money for the now bankrupt Third Reich.
To Sorowitsch, this is a challenge to his artistry as well as a pragmatic means of survival. To fellow prisoner Burger (August Diehl) though, their efforts are helping to finance the Nazi war machine. Thus natural survival instincts come up against the moral price one is willing to pay.
The two come to an unspoken agreement: Sorowitsch will continue to fabricate perfect forgeries, while Burger will continue to screw up the gelatin needed for printing. Sorowitsch refuses to rat out a fellow prisoner, but not all prisoners, having grown morally and spiritually soft, agree. Death threats in concentration camps must be taken seriously.
Even more intriguing is the absolutely poisonous and sycophantic relationship between Sally and Herzog. As Herzog, Striesow has an oily smile that is frightening to behold. Never has a smile held less mirth. It's absolutely toxic yet Sorowitsch takes it as a challenge -- both to his counterfeiting skills and his skills at staying alive. As the winds of war shift, Herzog's smile takes on new meaning, for Sorowitsch has become his passport, so to speak, to escaping the Allies.
Ruzowitzky builds suspense and deepens character relationships as the tension mounts. He has cinematographer Benedict Neeuenfels create a very grainy look while filling the soundtrack with Italian operettas and other Mediterranean-flavored music that one does not associate with concentration camps. This makes for a dislocation, where brutality and cruelty can exist just beyond a wooden fence where the counterfeiters play ping-pong, but the well-fed men can learn to shut their ears to the screams and gunshots.
The question of survival vs. martyrdom is never really answered, nor can it be. In the end, one can conclude from this story that both sides are right. The delaying tactics of the counterfeiters actually worked. But as Sorowitsch sits on that lonely Monte Carlo beach and heads for the casino, the enormity of what happened to him hits him in the solar plexus.
The Counterfeiters
Magnolia Filmproduktion and Aichholzer Film in a co-production with ZDF and Babelsberg Film
Credits
Writer-director: Stefan Ruzowitzky
Based on the book by: Adolf Burger
Producers: Josef Aichholzer, Nina Bohlmann, Babette Schroder
Director of photography: Benedict Neuenfels
Production designer: Isidor Wimmer
Music: Marius Ruhland
Costume designer: Nicole Fischnaller
Editor: Britta Nahler
Cast:
Salomon Sorowitsch: Karl Markovics
Burger: August Diehl
Herzog: Devid Striesow
Holst: Martin Brambach
Dr. Klinger: August Zirner
Aglaia: Marie Baumer
No MPAA rating, running time 98 minutes...
- 2/11/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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