A tragicomedy set in the Austrian countryside. Out of nowhere, God begins to fill a supermarket cashier’s empty soul – and it throws her for a loop. The second feature from well-known Viennese actor Karl Markovics screened at this year’s Berlinale.
Gabi Kovanda lives a simple and relatively contented life. She works in a tidy supermarket on the edge of town and, after her shift, she goes home to cook dinner for her husband and son before heading out to exercise class. However, Gabi progressively starts experiencing moments people around her might call blanking out. She just stops registering what’s going on and it slowly dawns on her that she is being addressed by God. “The story was inspired by a scene at a supermarket,” says director Markovics. “There was a quiet moment at the checkout, so the cashier started to spray detergent onto the conveyor belt to wipe it clean. When she did this, she had this vacant expression on her face. The mundane things intrigue me the most.” God never appears in Markovics’ Superworld; the film is conceived more as a pictorial dialogue between Him and Gabi that the others can only observe from the sidelines. The film is dominated by a meticulous performance from Ulrike Beimpold in the lead role and also by resourceful lensing that frequently follows the action from a divine perspective. The decidedly saturated images in Superworld make for an addictive viewing experience.
Šimon Šafránek
120 min / Color, DCP
Director Karl Markovics
/ Screenplay Karl Markovics
/ Dir. of Photography Michael Bindlechner
/ Music Herbert Tucmandl
/ Editor Alarich Lenz
/ Art Director Isidor Wimmer
/ Producer Dieter Pochlatko
/ Production epo-film
/ Cast Ulrike Beimpold, Rainer Wöss, Nikolai Gemel
/ Contact Austrian Films
Karl Markovics (b. 1963, Vienna) is an acclaimed character actor in theatre and has filled numerous roles in both stage dramas and musicals. He established himself in television with the series “Inspector Rex” (“Kommissar Rex,” 1994), then took the lead in the Oscar-winning drama The Counterfeiters (Die Fälscher, 2007), which screened at the 42nd KVIFF in the Horizons section. He also acted in the international coproductions Unknown (2011) and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), and he appears in the cast of the upcoming Lída Baarová by director Filip Renč. He debuted as a filmmaker with Breathing (Atmen, 2011), which was a success at Cannes (Directors’ Fortnight) and also Karlovy Vary. Markovics’ second film Superworld was premiered this year at Berlin in the Forum section.
Austrian Films
Stiftgasse 6, 1070, Vienna
Austria
Phone: +43 152 633 23
E-mail: [email protected]
Martin Schweighofer
Film Institution Rep.
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