Jesus, You Know

Colour, 35 mm
Austria, 2003, 87 min
Section: Documentary Competition

Synopsis

People enter the church, sit down on a pew and pray to Christ: their father, friend, saviour, and silent and loving listener. They are supported by prayers which smoothly transfer into confession. Remarkable  Austrian director Ulrich Seidl followed six believers into the intimacy of the church and shot individual portraits of lonely people who place every hope in religion. The director put these six condensed life stories into a highly purist form that places decisive stress on the word, imbued with deep inner pain. With the necessary agreement of those portrayed, Seidl chose to completely uncover hidden thoughts (till then intended only for Christ) conditioned by their varied emotions. His very daring and seemingly controversial conception astonishes for the degree of authenticity capturing the individual creeds. The film, however, demands an attitude from the viewer stripped of prejudice and conventional ideas of religious practices.

About the director

Ulrich Seidl (b. 1952, Vienna) came to film rather late, by cooperating on the script for Michael Glawogger Krieg in Wien (1989). He then focused on documentaries portraying intimate aspects of human life in a disturbing way; these brought Seidl to the attention of international critics and audiences. Several years in the making, his feature debut Dog Days, screened last year at Karlovy Vary, took the Grand Special Jury Prize at the 2001 Venice IFF. Filmography: Good News – Von Kolporteuren, toten Hunden und anderen Wienern (1990), Loss Is To Be Expected (Mit Verlust ist zu rechnen, 1992), The Last Real Men (Die letzten Männer, 1994), Animal Love (Tierische Liebe, 1995), Bilder einer Ausstellung (1996), Busenfreund (1997), Models (1998), Spass ohne Grenzen (1998), Zur Lage (2001), Dog Days (Hundstage, 2001), Jesus, Du weisst (2003).