In their semi-improvised independent movie directors Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel juxtapose two concepts of freedom, identity and film acting.
Phillip Hochmair is a young, successful actor at theatres in Vienna and Hamburg. His life is marked by learning new texts by heart, rehearsals, and performances, thus gradually losing contact with the reality of everyday life. He soon comes across an elderly circus artist Walter, an uncle he’s never met before. They strike up a friendship, and Walter follows him to Vienna and ends up sleeping on Philipp’s sofa, and tending for his neighbour’s kids. But while Philipp is constantly in fictional mode, Walter exists in the real world, late in his days wanting to make amends with his past.
»On the stage everything is different compared to what is going on behind the scenes. And this can be applied to everyday life – as we pretend to be what we actually are not. This discrepancy, this looking behind the scenes, is what we were interested in whilst making all our films: people interpreting something completely different on stage or people standing in the ring at the circus, and in a certain way this applies to everyone.«
- Tizza Covi
Tizza Covi
Born in Bolzano, Italy, in 1971. She lived in Paris and Berlin before studying photography in Vienna. After finishing her studies she went to Rome where she worked as a photographer.
Rainer Frimmel
Born in Vienna, Austria, in 1971, where he studied photography. He has received scholarships in Rome, Paris and New York for his photographic work.
Since 1996 Covi and Frimmel have been working together in photography, theatre and cinema. In 2002 they founded their own film production company, Vento Film, to produce their films independently.