Ausländer raus! Schlingensiefs Container

Effective recording of a special political art project. It is the summer of the year 2000 in Austria. Right-wing parties have won the elections with antiimmigration themes; the extreme right is even allowed to join the government. It looks as if Haider has won. Europe is shocked. The provocative political theatre, television and film maker Christoph Schlingensief thought up a clever mixture between Big Brother television and political campaigning and put it into practice in the most exclusive part of Vienna, right next to the opera. He locked real asylum seekers up in containers (but what is real, in an art project?) and, through a web site, people were able to vote on who should be expelled from the country first. The reactions were fierce and outrageous. The politically correct (who always tend to find the difference between art and reality difficult) stormed the containers. The scary right came to express its support. Heated discussions took place on the streets by the containers. Respectable citizens literally attacked each other.The documentary follows the project stepbystep, without revealing the result and without exposing the hidden meaning of Schlingensief’s actions. Just like the project itself, the film is both activist, slightly perverse and very satirical. A distorting mirror is held up to society and nonsense and hatred are combatted with humour.