FILM SERIES | MICHAEL GLAWOGGER | SLUMMING

Slumming (2006)
Directed by Michael Glawogger
Drama- Austria
100 min.
German with English subtitles

One of the most versatile and original talents in contemporary world cinema, the Austrian filmmaker Michael Glawogger has made an art of crossing boundaries, both geographic and formal. He spans diverse, far-flung locations within a single film, often dealing with ambiguous notions of home and foreignness, and moves back and forth between fiction and documentary, sometimes combining and subverting both modes. Glawogger’s career resists classification at every turn, but whether set on the margins of the developing world or in precincts of privilege, his surprising, beautifully photographed films are testaments to his own boundless curiosity and to the endless complexity of the human condition. The Austrian Cultural Forum is pleased to support this retrospective, his first in the United States, which includes his widely acclaimed and much debated documentary trilogy on harsh working environments, as well as a selection of fiction features and experimental short films.

Michael Glawogger’s feature drama, Slumming, premiered in 2006 at the Berlin Film Festival. A character study of the bored male overclass interacting with the drunken male underclass, Glawogger’s provocative, pitch-black comedy (co-written with Austrian filmmaker Barbara Albert) examines the unintended consequences of cruel behavior. What begins as a comedy about a 20-something rich prankster (August Diehl) who engages in “slum tourism,” frequenting the seamier nightspots of Vienna, takes on darker and more profound undertones as the characters find themselves in the Czech wilderness and, eventually, in an actual Indonesian shantytown. With Paulus Manker, August Diehl, and Michael Ostrowski.

For further information please visit: movingimage.us/films/2012/04/19/detail/michael-glawogger

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