Forever Never Anywhere

Colour, 35 mm
Austria, 2007, 88 min
Section: Another View

Synopsis

A history teacher named Baisch and his irascible brother-in-law, Anzengruber, who is addicted to sedatives, are coming back one night from the inauguration of their family business. On their way home Schwanenmeister, a talentless, small-time crowd-pleaser of the worst kind, gets mixed up in their journey. Instead of being at home in their beds, however, the three mismatched and conflicting antiheroes suddenly find themselves at a bleak crossroads, in a hopelessly absurd and bizarre situation, trapped in the car at some deserted location with no possibility of escape and no promise of rescue in sight. But even a ray of hope however may be just a prelude to a quirk of fate orchestrated by Toni, the son of an instructor running a summer camp for obese children... Thus begins a bleak and bizarre tragicomedy, with man and lab-rat in the same boat.

About the director

Antonin Svoboda (b. 1969, Vienna) studied theatre and art history (1988-90) and graduated from the Vienna Film Academy in 1997. In 1999 he co-founded the production company coop99. His name also appears as a producer under a number of international co-productions. He began directing with the short films Concrete Flowers (Betongraser, 1995), Karl wie Karlsplatz (1996), Mah Jong (1996), and Summer Holiday (Grosse Ferien, 1997), and at the same time made commercials and clips on social issues, such as Succo Justo, campaigning against child abuse. He debuted as a screenwriter and director with the feature-length film You Bet Your Life (Spiele Leben, 2005), which had its premiere at the festivals in Toronto and San Sebastian. Forever Never Anywhere is his second feature film.