Dichter zu Gast – Blick ins innere Österreich
Wien 89 – Zeugnisse des Übergangs

In German

In collaboration with Das Kino

Götz Spielmann: Der Nachbar (Austria, 1993)

Following the film screening there will be a discussion with Michael Stavarič, Götz Spielmann and Claudio Magris

CAST

Michael Stavarič, Götz Spielmann, Claudio Magris

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION

Unlike Berlin, Vienna remained a city which never quite lost its bridges and relations with Eastern Europe, even during the time of the Cold War. Still, the social climate of the city has undergone a fundamental change after the fall of the Iron Curtain. Götz Spielmann experienced first-hand how the reality of his city changed and affected his work while he prepared and filmed his moving melodrama Der Nachbar (The Neighbor) in 1993. One of the literary observers of this change is the author, columnist and critic Michael Stavarič. He was seven years old when his family moved from Brno to Vienna in 1979. After studying journalism, he worked as a secretary, ghostwriter and translator for the Czech Embassy in Vienna, which influenced his perspective on the changes of the metropolis since 1989.


Three movies provide the point of departure for an exploration of turning points in Austrian history which also became decisive in the biography of people whose lives were changed by historical events – set on tracks that lead into the present. Claudio Magris, who in his work has proven to be an obsessive tracker of such changes that large-scale history effects in the lives of individuals, meets Austrian artists and scientists on three evenings and goes on a journey with them: Vienna, Linz and Salzburg are the regions that lead us into the country’s innermost.