Martin Gschlacht Movies

Two strangers have a strong impact on a young man who's spending some time with his family in this drama from Germany. Seventeen-year-old Anton (Ludwig Trepte) has been struggling to make sense of his life since his father committed suicide when Anton was attending boarding school. Anton's mother, Luiza (Bibiana Beglau), wants to mend her strained relationship with her son and introduce him to her boyfriend, Paul (Andreas Patton), so she arranges for them to take a vacation together. After settling into a well-appointed cottage not far from the ocean, Anton meets David (Frederick Lau) and Katja (Alice Dwyer), teenaged siblings living nearby. While Anton is by his nature shy and withdrawn, David is confident and outgoing and encourages Anton to be bolder and more aggressive. David makes no secret that he and Katja are lovers, and he doesn't discourage Anton's attraction to his beautiful sister. Anton ignores his family to spend more time with Paul and Katja, but Paul's efforts to transform Anton into someone stronger and more confident take on a sinister undercurrent. Was Du Nicht Siehst (aka What You Don't See) was the first feature film from writer and director Wolfgang Fischer. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

A woman searching for a miracle seemingly finds one -- but what comes next? Christine (Sylvie Testud) has spent most of her life confined to a wheelchair, unable to use her arms and legs, and while she has a keen mind and the means to seek treatment, she looks for a solution to her condition in faith as well as medical science. Christine has made a pilgrimage to Lourdes, the village in Southwestern France where a celebrated miracle is said to have occurred, and she checks into an upscale clinic where a young nurse named Maria (Léa Seydoux) is assigned to look after her. Christine imagines that she and Maria are becoming fast friends, but the nurse prefers to spend her time with her co-workers rather than her patients, and she often flirts with Kuno (Bruno Todeschini), a handsome man who also works at the clinic. Christine finds herself having several conversations with Mme. Hartl (Gilette Barbier), who has a powerful belief in the healing powers of the waters of Lourdes, and after several days of treatment, Christine is amazed to find that she's regained the full use of her arms and legs. But once she's experienced the miracle she hoped for, Christine's interest is less in thanking the Lord and more in pursuing Kuno. Lourdes was written and directed by Jessica Hausner, and received its world premiere at the 2009 Venice International Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Trapped in their car following a hillside auto accident, three men become better acquainted than any of them ever imagined or wanted in director Antonin Svoboda's lighthearted comedy. Two men on their way to a wine store notice a handicapped comedian with an accordion stranded on the side of the street. It seems that the comedian had been attempting to chat up a passing female jogger when his car broke down, and while he doesn't know the generous pair who picked him up, he is thankful for the ride all the same. When the jogging beauty darts out in front of their car and the driver swerves to avoid her, the three men are sent careening down a wooded hillside and their car becomes ensnared in the brush. Now unable to unlock their doors or open their windows, the three men sit stuck in their car like rats in a cage. In order to pass the time until they are rescued, the men begin to engage each other in conversation, but who's to say what topics are fair game for discussion and what subjects are better left to silence? Somehow, it seems that an outside force is manipulating these three desperate souls. Could it be that their fate rests in the hands of a young boy playing a simple computer game? ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

A privileged young prankster with a cruel streak sends an alcoholic poet on a redemptive quest to find his way back home in director Michael Glawogger's semi-existential road drama. Sebastian (August Diehl) is a well-to-do slacker who has crafted his skill for slumming into something of an art form. Along with his flatmate Alex (Michael Ostrowski), Sebastian frequently arranges meetings with various women in dive bars throughout Vienna, only to photograph them surreptitiously under the table and use the resulting pictures as an endless source of amusement. As his already mean tricks begin to turn outright malicious, Sebastian finds the once-willing Alex growing increasingly uncomfortable with their "harmless" pastime. Kallman (Paulus Manker) is a troubled alcoholic who sells his poems on the street in order to stay inebriated. When Sebastian and Alex discover an unconscious Kallman sleeping off his latest round of drinks on a train station bench, they quickly spirit the clueless drunk into their car and across the Czech border where he is casually dumped without identification in a remote village. Subsequently enamored by restless local teacher Pia (Pia Hierzegger), Sebastian inadvertently revolts the kindly educator by jovially revealing the details of his latest practical joke. As a determined Pia sets out to locate the ailing alcoholic and safely bring him back home, Kallman attempts to recount just how he ended up so far away from Vienna as he navigates a strange and unfamiliar landscape. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Dice dictate the fate of a gambler willing to skirt society's conventions and relegate his fate to chance in this addiction drama from director Antonin Svoboda. Kurt's (Georg Friedrich) life is controlled by money. A manipulative hustler whose constant scheming is wearing thin on girlfriend Manu (Gerti Drassl), Kurt has an epiphany while viewing a television documentary on the life of classical composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Upon learning of the legendary pianist's unusual method of composing music by the roll of dice, Kurt immediately vows to put his fate in his own hands by making every decision in his life in exactly the same manner. Though at first the unusual method seems to pay off, resulting in numerous job offers and steering him into the company of beautiful drug addict Tanja (Birgit Minichmayr), the dice soon lead him into a life-threatening downward spiral. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

A woman discovers that an old hotel hides some unexpected secrets in this psychological thriller. Irene (Franziska Weisz) is hired as a desk clerk at a luxury hotel in Austria following the disappearance of Eva Stein, who had previously held the position. Having moved to the city to take the job, Irene takes a room in the hotel for the meantime, and is eager to learn more about her new home and business, though her boss Kros (Peter Strauss) seems curiously guarded about what goes on at the hotel. Though Irene makes friends with some of the staff members, she still spends a great deal of her time trying to uncover the mysteries of the building, and when she discovers a pair of Eva Stein's glasses, she begins to wonder if the girl ever went missing at all or if she might still be on the premises somewhere. Hotel was screened as part of the "Un Certain Regard" series at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

The African nation of Tanzania has a booming business selling fish to Europe, but its citizens live in a state of horrific poverty and degradation. Filmmaker Hubert Sauper uses his documentary Darwin's Nightmare to explore the lives of these people, and those who come from other countries to do business. As the film explains, sometime in the 1960s, some unknown party introduced Nile Perch into Lake Victoria, setting an ecological downward spiral in motion. The aggressively predatory fish consumed nearly every other species in the lake. The perch grew to enormous size, creating a booming business selling tons of filets to Europe. But few of the locals make a decent living from this thriving business. The fishermen and others work under dangerous conditions, earn subsistence wages, and are often unable to support their families. Those children live in the street, scavenging for food. The girls often become prostitutes, servicing the foreign pilots who bring in arms for conflicts in other regions, and fly out with the fish, leaving behind only the rotting carcasses and heads, which many of the locals cannot even afford to eat. As disease spreads and famine threatens, the ecology of the lake deteriorates, since the smaller fish that eat algae and waste are no longer there to maintain the water's purity. Darwin's Nightmare won a European Film Award for Best Documentary in 2004. The film was selected by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art for inclusion in the 2005 edition of New Directors/New Films. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi

A small-town misfit struggles against the world around her in this comedy-drama from Austria. Rita (Barbara Osika) is a teenager growing up in a small town in Austria, where she doesn't seem to fit in -- and, by all appearances, doesn't want to. Rita doesn't care for her schoolmates, has a knack for getting into trouble, skips class as often as she can get away with it, and her mother (Karina Brandlmayer) and father (Wolfgang Kostal) have just about given up on trying to get her to change her ways. One of Rita's few friends is Fexi (Christoph Bauer), a schoolboy several years her junior who likes to sneak out to the woods with her for cigarettes and conversation. Despite her lack of lack of enthusiasm for most of the boys at her school, Rita has developed an intense curiosity about sex, and she tries to persuade Fexi to help her lose her virginity, but he's too young to take her up on the offer. Rita instead offers herself to a bus driver (Peter Fiala), though his indifferent lovemaking leaves her no more content with life than she was before, and Rita decides to run away from home, taking Fexi with her -- a decision that proves to have dire consequences. Lovely Rita was the first feature film from writer and director Jessica Hausner; it was screened as part of the Un Certain Regard series at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Tajik filmmaker Bakhtiar Khudojnazarov directs this magical realist tragicomedy about a teenaged Tatar girl who mysteriously finds herself pregnant. Told from the point of view of the gestating fetus, young Mamlakat (Chulpan Khamatova) lives with her excitable father (Ato Mukhamedshanov) and her brother (Moritz Bleibtreu of Run Lola Run (1998)), who went mad after losing a chunk of skull during a war. Mamlakat dreams of becoming an actress, but when the local itinerate theater company breezes through the village, she misses it. Instead, she finds herself rolling down a hill in the arms of one of the actors. When she awakes the next morning, she finds that she's pregnant. In order to restore their family's honor, they pack up and travel across Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan in search of the acting troupe. Luna Papa was screened at the 1999 Venice Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi