Josef Bierbichler

Quote:
…even after a number of viewings, I’m still not sure if what I have seen is a kind of high Euro-modernist masterpiece about race, culture, urban rage and alienated identity – or a perversely opaque and frustrating essay in enigma, a labyrinth of blind alleys, in which putative solutions are forbiddingly walled off. It is a film which gestures at the literal incomprehensibility of experience, how it resists encirclement and extends beyond the perimeters of perception and interpretation. The mood of Code Unknown is moreover often fractious, crackling with unease and ill-humour, and yet this is a movie whose images and personae linger in the mind, and which can deliver dazzlingly generous, compassionate insights…
Peter Bradshaw, The GuardianRead More »

Achternbusch, poet, poacher, and Bavarian wants to leave his native land.
Quote:
In this somewhat experimental satirical black comedy, a renowned and sensitive poet and writer is fed up with the crudenesses of his native Bavaria and, in a well-publicized move, says he refuses even to die there. Instead, followed by reporters, he retires to Greenland. There, he has a reunion with his girlfriend, and gains some idea of the current situation of his wife before he dies.
~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie GuideRead More »

Synopsis:
A diagnosed manic-depressive whose impulsive behavior only serves to further isolate him from his increasingly irritated family and friends, Franz Brenninger (Josef Bierbichler) is a once-wealthy businessman who has since fallen on hard times. When Franz receives letter promising a healthy payoff if he simply allows millions of dollars to be transferred through his German bank account, he enlists the aid of Kurdish translator Leyla (Sibel Kekilli) and secures the 50,000 Euros needed to seal the deal, telling his trusting son Xaver (Philipp Hochmair) that he is going to use the cash to pay for his ailing wife Martha (Hanna Schygulla)’s much-needed eye surgery. Upon realizing that he has been scammed and has nothing left to lose, Franz quickly scrounges whatever funds he can gather and travels to Nairobi with Leyla in hopes of confronting the elusive con artist and getting the money back.Read More »