Austria,
1998, 90 min
Shown in 1999
CREDITS
- dir
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Michael Glawogger
- prod
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Erich Lackner, Rolf Schmid
- scr
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Michael Glawogger
- cam
-
Wolfgang Thaler
- editor
-
Andrea Wagner
- source
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Paul Thiltges Distribution, 18 Val Sainte-Croix, L -1370 Luxembourg. FAX: 352-250-394. EMAIL: Eiris@pt.lu
- gga award
-
Golden Spire, Film & Video: Current Events
-
COMMENTS
Michael Glawogger in person.
OTHER
Mexico City has grown so enormous that no one knows where it ends. Bombay’s population is so dense that it can’t be counted. Michael Glawogger takes us deep into these and the other “megacities” of Moscow and New York, telling stories of people struggling at the bottom of the urban food chain. These are the working poor, with meager, brutal jobs that keep them and their families barely alive, like Babu Khan, who sifts powdered paint, ending each day transformed into a blue or yellow specter by the pigments covering him from head to toe; Modesto Rodríguez, selling chicken feet from a homemade streetcart to feed his large family; or Shankar Loutakke, who sews together strips of film and shows them on the street with his hand-cranked portable projector. Each of these industrious people dreams of owning a home and leading a better life, but we also see the larger world surrounding them, a world of junkies and prostitutes, homelessness and crime and savage, soul-destroying work. Using a range of techniques, from unvarnished cinema verité to improvised, staged scenes, Glawogger presents us with an unforgettable vision that is both epic in its scope and shockingly intimate in its details.
—Tod Booth
FACTOID #61
The first repertory film screened at Festival was The Bluebird (1940), based on Maurice Maeterlinck’s play, showed October 23, 1965, with Shirley Temple Black in person to discuss her role in the film.
