Gerhard Ertl

Helene (86) and Toni (70) are completely different. One is planned and well-timed, the other impulsive and spontaneous. As an unlikely team, they embark on a journey to Switzerland for euthanasia. But their road trip through the mountains turns out differently than planned.

Three stories about couples who all have a gas station in Austria

Mae quit school and ran away from home. After her brother’s death her family is broken. Only his red shoes (Chucks) remain. Mae has to start working in a social institution where she meets Paul. He is funny, sensitive, takes Mae as she is - and he is terminally ill. In a book named Chucks Mae writes down her own story about growing up between life and death: wild, tender and absolutely honest.

Does luck have a use by date? Both thought that at eighty they have experienced everything until, like a bolt of lightening, Rosa and Bruno come together and immediately fall head over heels. There are two obstacles to their happiness though: Bruno’s marriage, which has long been routine, and Rosa’s illness; she has cancer and not long left to live. Despite the difficult circumstances, the two decide to breakaway – Bruno from his relationship and Rosa from her retirement home. Against the advice of carers, doctors and relatives, the pair moves into a new apartment together. ANFANG 80 shows with a great deal of unequivocal humour how insensitively and sometimes desperately overburdened society reacts to love among the elderly.

The novel “Fitness” by anarchic poet Stefanie Sargnagel is to be made into a film. The only condition on the part of film funding: Sargnagel should play herself. Surfacing alongside the author are numerous actors from the Viennese cultural landscape in cameo appearances to satirically dissect the Austrian culture industry and its mechanisms.