Ulrich Seidl

  • Ulrich Seidl – Safari (2016)

    2011-2020AustriaDocumentaryUlrich Seidl

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    Ulrich Seidls follow wealthy tourists going on safari to kill often endangered species. Some determinedly searching for trophies, others to enjoy. Even if every prey comes at a price, they always find a way to legitimize their own actions.Read More »

  • Ulrich Seidl – Safari (2016)

    2011-2020AustriaDocumentaryUlrich Seidl

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    Ulrich Seidl follow wealthy tourists going on safari to kill often endangered species. Some determinedly searching for trophies, others to enjoy. Even if every prey comes at a price, they always find a way to legitimize their own actions.Read More »

  • Ulrich Seidl – Import/Export (2007)

    2001-2010ArthouseAustriaDramaUlrich Seidl

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    Quote:
    The case of Josef Fritzl, an outwardly respectable man from Amstetten in Austria who imprisoned and raped his daughter for 24 years in a specially built cellar dungeon, resulted this summer in urgent new critical attention being paid to Austria’s cultural figures warning of a terrible malaise lying beneath their country’s prosperous surface, and that of western Europe generally. In the London Review of Books, Nicholas Spice wrote about Fritzl in relation to Gier, or Greed, the latest novel from Austrian Nobel laureate Elfriede Jelinek about the murder of a teenage girl by a police officer. Jelinek had written on her website: “Austria is a small world in which the big world holds its rehearsal. The performance takes place in the very much smaller cellar dungeon in Amstetten.”Read More »

  • Ulrich Seidl – Im Keller AKA In the Basement (2014)

    2011-2020AustriaDocumentaryUlrich Seidl

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    Quote:
    In the Basement (Im Keller) is a 2014 Austrian documentary film directed by Ulrich Seidl about people and their obsessions, and what they do in their basements in their free time. It was part of the Out of Competition section at the 71st Venice International Film Festival.

    Corpulent sex slaves, tuba-playing Nazi obsessives, reborn doll fantasists — just a regular stroll through the neighborhood, then, for patented guru of the grotesque Ulrich Seidl, who makes an intriguing return to documentary filmmaking with “In the Basement.” Grabby and grubby in equal measure, this meticulously composed trawl through the contents of several middle-class Austrians’ cellars (a space, according to Seidl, that his countrymen traditionally give over to their most personal hobbies) yields more than a few startling discoveries.Read More »

  • Ulrich Seidl – Paradies: Glaube AKA Paradise: Faith (2012)

    2011-2020ArthouseAustriaDramaUlrich Seidl

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    Put together a subversive filmmaker like Ulrich Seidl with the subject of religious fanaticism and you’re bound to get something provocative. But Paradise: Faith, the second part of the Austrian director’s trilogy about three women from the same family on different quests, is possibly more interesting to think about and discuss afterwards than to sit through. Depending how you look at it, there’s a pitch-black comedy buried in here or a redeeming shred of empathy at the tail end of two grueling hours. Either way, it’s strictly for the faithful.Read More »

  • Ulrich Seidl – Paradies: Liebe (2012)

    2011-2020DramaGermanyUlrich Seidl

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    Quote:
    The premiere of the first part of Ulrich Seidls PARADISE trilogy was celebrated in this year’s competition of the Cannes Film Festival with great success. The film tells the story of Teresa (Margarethe Tiesel), a 50-year-old Austrian from Vienna who travels as a sex tourist to Kenya in search of love. On the beaches of Kenya they´re known as Sugar Mamas: European women to whom black beach boys offer sex to earn a living. The movie of Ulrich Seidl deals about older women and young men, the market value of sexuality, the power of skin color, Europe and Africa, and the exploited, who have no choice but to victimize other victims.

    PARADISE: Love is the opener in a trilogy about three women in one family who take separate vacations: one as a sex tourist, another as a Catholic missionary (PARADISE: Faith) and the third at a diet camp for teenagers (PARADISE: Hope.) Three films, three women, three stories of longing.Read More »

  • Ulrich Seidl – Jesus, Du weisst AKA Jesus, you know (2003)

    2001-2010AustriaDocumentaryUlrich Seidl

    Documentary filmmaker Ulrich Seidl offers a provocative look at both Christianity and its followers by examining a handful of true believers through their prayers in this film. Jesus, Du Weisst observes six people — mostly Catholics — as they kneel in church and pray for guidance. Rather than offer a detailed look at their personal lives, Seidl allows us to learn about these people as they share their needs and concerns with the Lord through prayer, and we watch some of the subjects as their faith manifests itself in their daily lives. In Jesus, Du Weisst (Jesus, I Know), Seidl also touches upon how the manner in which people worship is often reflected in the design and decor of the churches to which they belong. — Mark DemingRead More »

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