A tragicomic psycho-thriller and a metaphor for a world in a tail spin, in which the saviours are part of the cause of the crisis. Nine people take part in a two-week 'know-yourself course' on a remote country estate. The motives of the participants are as diverse as their characters. The charismatic therapist Roman Romero and his assistants confront their clients with their alleged or real problems. Cut off from the outside world, the participants become more and more consumed by the therapy. After a week, Doctor Romero is found murdered. Panic breaks out and psychotherapy changes to psycho-terror. Grotesque accusations fly back and forth, accidents and misunderstandings ensue and bring things to boiling point. Chance, fortune, misfortune and accelerating hysteria make sure the participants are no longer able to act. A catastrophe is unavoidable.Christian Frosch, who has been represented previously at the festival by e.g. Sissi auf Schloß Gödölö, worked on and off for three years on his first full-length feature. He rehearsed so much with his actors that many emotional outbursts in the film are for real. Alongside his own brief personal experience with psychotherapy, Frosch has researched the blossoming diversity of group therapies in the West.
- Director
- Christian Frosch
- Premiere
- World premiere
- Country of production
- Austria
- Year
- 1996
- Festival Edition
- IFFR 1997
- Length
- 125'
- Medium
- 35mm
- Language
- German
- Producer
- Prisma Film- und Fernsehproduktion GmbH
- Sales
- Austrian Film Commission
- Screenplay
- Christian Frosch
- Cinematography
- Johannes Hammel
- Editor
- Michael Palm
- Production Design
- Michaela Pedratscher
- Music
- Michael Palm
- Cast
- Blixa Bargeld