Archive of films Winter Journey / Winterreise

Germany
2006, 95 min

Section: Official Selection - Competition
Year: 2006

Despite advancing age, rural businessman Franz has remained fit and energetic, but serious mental illness and financial problems mean that this hitherto ordinary man one day finds himself on a journey to Nairobi to get his money back, and perhaps his human dignity as well.

Synopsis

Franz Brenninger is sixty, but up to now he has managed his small company with a firm hand. He lives in a modern house in the country, has brought up two children, and remains a constant support to his sick wife Martha. It is Martha who is the first to notice that something is wrong with Franz: he suffers from mood swings that have an increasingly visible effect on his relations with the world around him. His states of hectic activity alternate with suicidal depression. The doctors say that it may be a case of manic-depressive psychosis...To make things worse, Franz finds that he is in deep financial trouble. He agrees to join businessmen from faraway Kenya in a venture that initially looks very advantageous. When he discovers that he has been conned, quietly supported by his wife he accepts the help of eighteen-year-old Leyla, who has been assisting with English correspondence in his firm. In the company of this young guide, the sick man sets off for Nairobi to try to get his money back.....This psychological drama addresses the question of the fragile border between illness and “normality”. Josef Bierbichler in the leading role is superbly seconded by Hanna Schygulla in the role of Franz’s wife Martha, and Sibel Kekilli as Leyla.

About the director

Hans Steinbichler (b. 1969, Solothurn, Switzerland) studied law in Passau and film at the Munich Film and Television Academy (HFF/M). He made the short films Abstieg (1996) and Mono (1998) and the documentaries Verspiegelte Zeit – Erinnerungen von Angelika Schrobsdorff (1998), Das Auge der Erinnerung – Ansichten von Slawomir Idziak (2000), Die Germaniker – Römisch-Deutsch Karrieren (2000), Der Moralist – Vittorio Hösle entdeckt Amerika (2003) and Inseln im Chiemsee (2003). Three years ago he directed the feature film Hierankl (2003) about a young woman returning to the scenes of her childhood. The film Winter Journey (2006) is his second feature film project.

Contacts

Beta Cinema GmbH
Grünwalder Weg 28d, 820 41, Oberhaching/Munich
Germany
Tel: +49 896 734 698 828
E-mail: [email protected]
www: www.betacinema.com

d.i.e.film.gmbh
Zentnerstrasse 42, D-80796, München
Germany
Tel: +49 89 277 771-0
Fax: +49 89 277 771-77
E-mail: [email protected]

About the film

Color, 35 mm
World premiere

Section:	Official Selection - Competition

Director:	Hans Steinbichler
Screenplay:	Martin Rauhaus
Dir. of Photography:	Bella Halben
Music:	Antoni Lazarkiewicz
Editor:	Anne Loewer
Producer:	Uli Aselmann, Robert Marciniak
Production:	d.i.e.film.gmbh
Cast:	Josef Bierbichler, Sibel Kekilli, Hanna Schygulla, André Hennicke, Philipp Hochmair, Anna Schudt
Contact:	Beta Cinema GmbH, d.i.e.film.gmbh

www:	www.betacinema.com

Guests

Hans Steinbichler

Film Director

Andreas Rothbauer

Distributor, Producer, Sales Agent

Sibel Kekilli

Actress, Actress

Josef Bierbichler

Actor