Erich Lackner

In conurbations where hundreds of thousands live alongside one another, in the era of a highly technological society, in which communication has never played such a significant role, man has become lonely. Disappointed by his fellow human beings, he turns to animals. Dogs and other domestic animals serve him as companions, life partners, cuddly objects and bedfellows.

A portrait of Attwenger, the duo from Upper Austria (Markus Binder and Hans-Peter Falkner). The attempt to unite the worlds of Austrian folk music and hip-hop has already succeeded in the music of Attwenger.

After screwing up a money exchange a Viennese small-time crook accompanied by a Russian hostess hits the road to the East.

Main character of this movie is Rene Rupnik, a former math teacher. He is forty years old and lives together with his mother in a desolate block of flats. Ever since his early youth women with big breasts have fascinated him, because they symbolise a kind of earth mother to him. He has never had an especially close relationship with his own mother; she was too 'bony' for him. Object of Rene's fantasy is the actress Senta Berger, to him everything a woman should be. Standing by the blackboard and explaining the mathematical laws of sine and cosine ('sinus' is bosom in Latin), Rene sings the praises of the female curves and those of Santa Berger in particular. Filmmaker Ulrich Seidl let the former teacher speak freely about his obsessions and desires, intercutting his monologues with scenes from the protagonist's day-to-day life.

Gangster boss Carlos orders the dodgy Viennese junkyard owner Harry to bring him a bag from Poland. Harry passes the order on to his "best man" Schorsch. Schorsch, not exactly the brightest, is currently without a driver's license and completely fixated on the 24-hour car race of Le Mans. So he gives the order to Mao and sends in their place the takeaway lessees Hans and Max to Poland. Their journey leads to a seemingly endless drug trip full of extraordinary phenomena.

Composed exclusively of the footage recorded by Leo Hurwitz during the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1961, A Specialist is a courtroom drama painting the portait of a zealous bureaucrat who has immense respect for the Law and hierarchy, a police official responsible for the elimination of several million people, a modern criminal.

The lives of a Serb family are torn apart by the pressures of the not-too-distant war with the Croats. The film addresses the fundamental question "Can love survive between political enemies?"

KOTSCH tells the story of four friends called Alf (Christoph Theußl), Boris (Andreas Kiendl), Chris (Michael Ostrowski) and Dalli (Michael Fuith), who grew up together in the small town Fohnsdorf in Styria.

Benjamin Levi (Bruno Cathomas) is a Bavarian cattle dealer traveling to pre-World War II Germany on his annual trip to a remote farming village. Levi hopes to do some business and, more importantly, win the hand of the lovely Lisbeth (Caroline Ebner). But Nazi propaganda has gripped the small community and poisoned it forever. Now, Levi and Lisbeth are targets of hate in this provocative and shocking drama.

Megacities is a documentary about the slums of five different metropolitan cities.

The story and fate of three families: A Jewish family destroyed by the massacres of the Nazis in Lithuania; the family of the culprit, who flew to America and keeps grotesque family cohesion; the family of Ratz, a social democratic family, dissolving itself miserably in today's Vienna. The condemnation of the last century bundled in these three families showing clearly that one could never escape from its own past. Written by themoth-1

What does modern art mean for ordinary visitors to an exhibition?

Disappointed by failed relationships and the demands set by local women, more and more Austrians search for happiness in a marriage with women from Thailand and the Philippines. Asked about the positive properties of their Asian spouses, the answer of the Austrian husbands quite often is, "They don't talk back." Protagonist of the film is Karl S., a teacher in Vienna in his forties. Following his failed marriage he is now seeking a durable partnership and is on the lookout for a wife who doesn't question her traditional role. His solution: a wife from the Far East. Karl S. rounds up experiences and visits several mixed couples to get a clearer picture and to have his idea proven right. The film accompanies him on his search for the ideal woman and gives an insight into the imagination of these "last real men" who at the beginning seem to have hit the jackpot with their decisions

Is heavy manual labour disappearing or is it just becoming invisible? Where can we still find it in the 21st century? Workingman's Death follows the trail of the HEROES in the illegal mines of the Ukraine, sniffs out GHOST among the sulphur workers in Indonesia, finds itself face to face with LIONS at a slaughterhouse in Nigeria, mingles with BROTHERS as they cut a huge oil tanker into pieces in Pakistan, and joins Chinese steel workers in hoping for a glorious FUTURE.

FRANKREICH WIR KOMMEN is a highly enjoyable documentary, obviously intended for TV, but showing at film festivals. It shows us the highlights of the 1998 World Cup Championships in France through the eyes of several interesting and diverse fans of the Austrian national team. Entertaining, even for those not interested in football.

As the ship Donau makes its final journey from Vienna to the Black Sea, a young man sworn to fulfill a dying woman's wish lures a reluctant captain into a new adventure.

Vienna, 1995. Jasmin, Tamara, Valentin, Senad and Roman live near the northern border of Austria. Their lives repeatedly intersect and drift apart. The characters involved are young migrants from the former Yugoslavia, Romania, Poland and Austria itself. Strangers in a strange land, they feel a sense of loss in their new, temporary environment. The five-some meet and get close to each other, hopelessly clinging to friendships and relationships with no future. They frequent cafés and train stations dreaming of a better tomorrow. Often, they just fall back on the prospect of short-term affection in yet another doomed romantic or sexual encounter. Trying hard to suppress the memories of war and alienation, they try to find moral strength and warmth through one another.

The Detour is about a young woman travelling through Europe in search of herself and the truth of life. It is based on meetings between goatherd Joanna and Austrian author and playwright Thomas Bernhard. Joanna is lost after her boyfriend dumps her at a Women's Relief Centre in Rotterdam. She works in a library and visits the theatre, where she first sees a play by Thomas Bernhard. Bernhard's philosophy permeates Joanna's thoughts. When Camille invites her to visit the French Pyrenees, she accepts. On the way, she decides to visit Bernhard in Austria. She attempts to start a relationship with him and thereby finds herself.

"At the Edge of the World" was filmed in 1991, the year of independence, and 1992, the year of war. One year between life as it was then and life as it is now, between rejoicing and destruction. The civil war in Georgia destroyed the utopia of freedom and left behind a battlefield, both in the country itself and in the minds of the Georgians.

Two yuppies play mean pranks on those around them until one joke has unexpected consequences.

Two men and a young woman who recently met spend a night together at a secluded mountain inn. It soon turns out that one of the two men could be a dangerous psychopath who is wanted by the police. The woman is torn between her emotions and what she should actually believe. A long night takes its course, at the end of which there will be no winner.

'He who wants water must be prepared to kill for it' an old Arab saying goes. At the beginning of the 21st century water, the ancient source of life, already is in short supply all over the world. From the heart of Africa to the Aral Sea in the Kazakh steppe the film portrays different people's lives and their struggle for water and survival.

This may be the last journey of Domagali, Amina and Hanne and their Toubou women's caravan in the Sahara. Each fall, armed with daggers, they leave the men behind and cross the desert to sell dates in Agadez to bring back the means to survive in the village for another year. This economic responsibility gives them a special position in their society. Yet, the increasing market pressure endangers their 'business'. How will their social status change