Silvia Fenz Movies

Austrian cult director Niki List sets this social satire in Helden, a village in a remote Tyrolean valley where old-fashioned values still prevail. The village boasts an incredible priest who receives an enthusiastic response from his congregation, and a village idiot who reads Proust. All this is bound to change because the greedy mayor wants to sell the idyllic village to tourism. The poacher Max (Christian Schmidt) is in love with poor Emma (Elke Winkens), and yet he won't dream of getting in the way of her marriage to the mayor's rich son. But Max must take up the fight to protect his village. Surprisingly (or not so surprisingly), Emma sides with Max. Director List creates an absurd sort of Alpine Rock Musical, poking fun at the clichés of the "heimet" (home film) genre which is popular in German cinema. Helden in Tirol was screened as part of the Panorama section of the 49th International Berlin Film Festival, 1999. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, Rovi

A writer is visited by one of his creations in this Austrian fantasy comedy. Crime novelist Robert David aspires to write "serious" literature. The heavy drinking writer's first attempt is an epic romance in which a daring hero (patterned after himself) is involved with a lovely, yet passive heroine, Sarah. One day, as Robert gazes into the hotel window across the street he sees a woman who is the perfect physical match of his Sarah. They meet and he is shocked to discover that her personality is the total opposite of his character's personality. Whereas the fictional Sarah is meek and gentle, the real one is fiery and independent. She wants to be no one's fantasy. Robert's friends see nothing amiss about the fact that a fictional person has magically come to life. When a police official threatens her, they valiantly rally 'round her. Apparently the cop is trying to get revenge on Robert, who slept with his wife, by having Sarah, a woman with no past and no documentation committed to an asylum. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi