MICHAEL (2011)

Sexual abuse and violence against children

Austria. Direction: Markus Schleinzer. Production: Nikolaus Geyrhalter, Markus Glaser, Michael Kitzberger, Wolfgang Widerhofer / NGF – Geyrhalter Glaser Kitzberger Widerhofer. Screenplay: Markus Schleinzer. Photography: Gerald Kerkletz. Edition: Wolfang Widerhofer. Cast: Michael Fuith, David Rauchenberger, Christine Kain, Ursula Strauss, Viktor Tremmel. Running time: 96 min

LANGUAGE: German / SUBTITLES: Basque, English

Michael is an insurance agent who lives in a quiet residential area. He is a shy, methodical and dispassionate man, an apparently ordinary person, with a job, a family, and conventional friends. But the basement of his house conceals a terrible secret: he keeps a 10 year-old boy locked up in it.

This first work from Vienna’s Markus Schleinzer –casting director for over 15 years, regular collaborator with filmmakers like Ulrich Seidl and Michael Haneke– follows five months in the (double) life of this man: the routine of his life at work and in society and the other side of the coin when night falls and he comes home.