The story of this documentary-type film debut for director Ulrich Seidl unfolds one weekend in an anonymous Viennese suburb. In a no-man’s land between the autobahn, massive supermarkets and warehouses, we are treated to the monotony of weekend work and activities which are performed without the least sign of pleasure. It’s sweltering and, already wearing the skimpiest of clothing, people are beginning to show signs of psychological stress. The temperature is rising, the atmosphere of the late weekend afternoon becomes more and more tense, and aggressions begin to seethe. The evening will be full of games, sex and violence. The director confronts his audience with characters whose lives intersect in various ways, and with their desperate longing for love and the almost hopeless possibility of finding and holding onto it. Ulrich Seidl said about the making of the film: “Dog Days is a so-called real movie with a real script, real stories and real actors. But at the same time there are many things that are different. There was a script but no written dialogue, there were actors but more nonactors, and we focused on a more documentary style.” The movie won the Grand Jury Prize at this year’s at the Venice IFF 2001.