Opening 6 Oct 2022
Directed by:
David Clay Diaz
Writing credits:
David Clay Diaz, Senad Halilbasic
Principal actors:
Bagher Ahmadi, Verena Altenberger, Farid Atrian, Iulian Burciu, Alan Burgon
With the coming of the overwhelming migration crisis, Europe has been split by those supporting it and those against it. This film focuses on four interwoven stories where each protagonist most comes to terms with their decisions they make as they interact with various refugees. In general Austria’s attitude has taken a much more conservative stand than that of Germany, so it wasn’t surprising that the first character introduced is a young man named Marcel (Alexander Srtschin). He creates an organization for escorting women home in order to protect from the allegedly dangerous refugees. Much to his surprise, many of the young women are sympathetic to the migrants and even his family presents itself a challenge. Another story tells a story of the overzealous young volunteer Marie (Verena Altenberger) who travels to the Mediterranean Sea to save drowning people making the crossing but finds only bureaucracy standing in their way. Her parents try to understand her actions but not really standing 100% behind her actions.
The last two stories are truly marked with disappointment and a shattered delusion of fallen self-made heroes. In the story of Petra (Barbara Romainer) who adopts a supposed unaccompanied, underage refugee Mohammed (Mehdi Meskar) who quickly tells her the truth is confronted with how to go on with this situation. Gerald`s (Lukas Miko) story is quite realistic when you realize the hard work of being the head of a refugee home and its potential for being a ticking time bomb due to the emotional trauma of the people. This film needs to be seen in English or with subtitles unless you are very efficient in the Austrian dialect. (Shelly Schoeneshoefer)
