FRI, OCT 12, 9pm:
An MBC Premiere Presentation
In collaboration with Emerging Pictures
MiamiPremiere!
BREATHING
(Atmen)
Directed by KARL MARKOVICS/Austria/2011/93mins.
With Thomas Schubert, Georg Friedrich, Gerhard Liebmann
The acclaimed directorial debut from veteran Austrian actor Karl Markovics (star of the Academy Award-winning The Counterfeiters), is an eloquent, affecting portrait of an incarcerated teenager (newcomer Thomas Schubert) attempting to win parole by working at a local morgue. Raised from birth in institutions, he is initially impassive and self-sabotaging in his behavior; soon, though, he begins to respect the solemn work of handling the dead, and starts to come to terms with his own youthful crime.
(In German with English subtitles)
WINNER: Cannes Film Festival Europa Cinemas Award
Best Film and Best Actor
SarajevoFilm Festival FIPRESCI prize and Best Film Molodist Film Festival
Best German Language Film
ZurichFilm Festival
“★★★★ HEARTFELT HUMANISM AND OUTRIGHT QUALITY trump not only stylistic bells and whistles, but everything else as well…The lack of sentimentality doesn’t register as a pitiless gaze so much as an attempt to honor the character’s conflicted relationship with the world. His struggle becomes your struggle with nary a heartstring crudely tuggedundefineda feat that both Schubert and Markovics pull off with surprising, amazing grace.”
-David Fear, Time Out
New York
“★★★★ Best known until now for Oscar-winning holocaust drama The Counterfeiters, Karl Markovics flexes his muscles on the other side of the camera with terrific effect. A FINE, DEEPLY MOVING DEBUT for the new writer/director”-Empire
