Monika Willi

The Fundraiser

An accompanying short film to TÁR (2022).

Sparta

Ewald moved to Romania years ago. Now in his 40s, he seeks a fresh start. Leaving his girlfriend, he moves to the hinterland. With young boys from the area, he transforms a decaying school into a fortress. The children enjoy a new, carefree existence. But the distrust of the villagers is soon awoken. And Ewald is forced to confront a truth he has long suppressed. Sparta is the brother film to Rimini (2022), and the conclusion of Ulrich Seidl's diptych about the inescapability of the past and the pain of finding yourself.

TÁR

As celebrated conductor Lydia Tár starts rehearsals for a career-defining symphony, the consequences of her past choices begin to echo in the present.

Rimini

Richie Bravo, once upon a time a successful pop star, chases after his faded fame in wintry Rimini. Trapped between permanent intoxication and concerts for busloads of tourists, his world starts to collapse when his adult daughter breaks into his life.

Meanwhile on Earth

When we die, there are still some practicalities that need to be taken care of before our time among the living is finally over. In Meanwhile on Earth we enter the world around our end station, an industry of death. It is a place where the existential meets the mundane, the sacred meets the profane.

Styx

Rike is forty, a successful doctor whose job demands everything of her. She intends to use her much-needed annual holiday to fulfill her long-cherished dream of sailing alone from Gibraltar to Ascension, a small tropical island in the middle of the Atlantic. Her desire for a carefree holiday seems to be coming to pass but then, after a storm, her beautiful adventure suddenly turns into an unprecedented challenge when she spots a badly damaged, hopelessly overloaded refugee boat nearby.

Happy End

A well-to-do French family living in Calais deal with a series of setbacks and crises while paying little attention to the grim conditions in the refugee camps within a few miles of their home.

Untitled

More than two years after the sudden death of Michael Glawogger in April 2014, film editor Monika Willi realizes a film out of the film footage produced during 4 months and 19 days of shooting in the Balkans, Italy, Northwest and West Africa. A journey into the world to observe, listen and experience, the eye attentive, courageous and raw. Serendipity is the concept - in shooting as well as in editing the film.

Untitled

More than two years after the sudden death of Michael Glawogger in April 2014, film editor Monika Willi realizes a film out of the film footage produced during 4 months and 19 days of shooting in the Balkans, Italy, Northwest and West Africa. A journey into the world to observe, listen and experience, the eye attentive, courageous and raw. Serendipity is the concept - in shooting as well as in editing the film.

Wild Mouse

Kings should be treated courteously! At least, that's what famous music critic Georg thinks. But he finds himself counting pennies when his chief editor suddenly fires him from the Viennese newspaper for which he has been writing for decades. While keeping his dismissal a secret from his psychotherapist wife Johanna, whose mind is occupied solely by getting pregnant, Georg begins to plot his revenge.

Thank You for Bombing

Thank you for Bombing accompanies three correspondents to their working place in conflict areas and gives an insight into their daily routine aside from cameras and satellite phones - somewhere between bombing alarm, laundry and Bach flower therapy.

Last Summer

A yacht lies at anchor in a bay off the Sicilian coast. Naomi, a young Japanese woman, has four days to leave her son with a lasting memory of her before she loses custody of him forever. In this hostile environment, Naomi faces the difficulty of approaching Ken under the controlling glare of the crew. When Naomi's hopes seem lost Ken starts to take an interest in her. Timeless days magnify the weight of their last goodbye.

The Dead and the Living

The personal journey of young Sita is not only an expedition into her family's burdened past during World War 2. It is also a journey to the abyss of modern European society, a trip which takes her from Berlin to Romania via Vienna and Warsaw - about losing one's homeland and discovering oneself, about hope and responsibility.

Amour

Georges and Anne are in their eighties. They are cultivated, retired music teachers. Their daughter, who is also a musician, lives abroad with her family. One day, Anne has a stroke, and the couple's bond of love is severely tested.

The White Ribbon

An aged tailor recalls his life as the schoolteacher of a small village in Northern Germany that was struck by a series of strange events in the year leading up to WWI.

Contact High

Gangster boss Carlos orders the dodgy Viennese junkyard owner Harry to bring him a bag from Poland. Harry passes the order on to his "best man" Schorsch. Schorsch, not exactly the brightest, is currently without a driver's license and completely fixated on the 24-hour car race of Le Mans. So he gives the order to Mao and sends in their place the takeaway lessees Hans and Max to Poland. Their journey leads to a seemingly endless drug trip full of extraordinary phenomena.

Funny Games

When Ann, husband George, and son Georgie arrive at their holiday home they are visited by a pair of polite and seemingly pleasant young men. Armed with deceptively sweet smiles and some golf clubs, they proceed to terrorize and torture the tight-knit clan, giving them until the next day to survive.

Workingman's Death

Is heavy manual labour disappearing or is it just becoming invisible? Where can we still find it in the 21st century? Workingman's Death follows the trail of the HEROES in the illegal mines of the Ukraine, sniffs out GHOST among the sulphur workers in Indonesia, finds itself face to face with LIONS at a slaughterhouse in Nigeria, mingles with BROTHERS as they cut a huge oil tanker into pieces in Pakistan, and joins Chinese steel workers in hoping for a glorious FUTURE.

Visions of Europe

Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.

Don't Do That!

Joël is jealous and violent. After one crisis too many, Nicole, his young wife, returns to live with her parents with their three-year-old son. Joël hangs on, begs, threatens. One day, he kidnaps the little boy.

Time of the Wolf

When Anna and her family arrive at their holiday home, they find it occupied by strangers. This confrontation is just the beginning of a painful learning process.

To the Future through the Night

Nick, a jobless cook, falls in love with Anna, a film student. Some time after their adventurous first night she leaves him. Then time starts to run backwards - for everybody but Nick. He finds himself in a backwards world, everybody talks, runs, eats backwards. He accepts the situation, realizing that Anna is bound to return to him this way. He wants them to live together, him forwards, her backwards...

Citizen Krone, Austria between the Lines

This film journeys deep into the heart of Austria’s favorite daily newspaper, the Kronen Zeitung, the most widely-read paper per capita in the world. The “Krone’s” 2.7 million readers represent 43% of the Austrian press market. A reflection of the Austrian soul, this newspaper serves as a prism through which we can understand the rise of the populist Right in this country and examine the dangerous flirtation between media and politics.

The Piano Teacher

Erika Kohut, a sexually repressed piano teacher living with her domineering mother, meets a young man who starts romantically pursuing her.

Der Überfall

Looking around for a suitable place to hold up, Andreas stumbles into a tailor's shop. What was supposed to last only a few minutes ends up being a bizarre afternoon for three men: the tragicomic of the less-than-expert robber, the cranky tailor and a customer - a know-it-all who drives the other two crazy. The mood constantly shifts, and the tables keep turning among the threesome. A black comedy with a twist.

France, Here We Come!

FRANKREICH WIR KOMMEN is a highly enjoyable documentary, obviously intended for TV, but showing at film festivals. It shows us the highlights of the 1998 World Cup Championships in France through the eyes of several interesting and diverse fans of the Austrian national team. Entertaining, even for those not interested in football.

Northern Skirts

Vienna, 1995. Jasmin, Tamara, Valentin, Senad and Roman live near the northern border of Austria. Their lives repeatedly intersect and drift apart. The characters involved are young migrants from the former Yugoslavia, Romania, Poland and Austria itself. Strangers in a strange land, they feel a sense of loss in their new, temporary environment. The five-some meet and get close to each other, hopelessly clinging to friendships and relationships with no future. They frequent cafés and train stations dreaming of a better tomorrow. Often, they just fall back on the prospect of short-term affection in yet another doomed romantic or sexual encounter. Trying hard to suppress the memories of war and alienation, they try to find moral strength and warmth through one another.

Im Namen Gottes

Lower Austria, Vienna. Time frame: from 1961 to the present. The family: 19 children born between 1961 and 1989. The father: a deeply religious man. His wife and children: possessions.

Rose

In the turmoil of the Thirty-Years' War, a mysterious soldier appears in a secluded Protestant village claiming to be heir to a long-abandoned manor. His quest for recognition and acceptance are complicated by his secret: under a false identity, false name, and pretense of a false gender, he has made his way to the village. But to achieve her goals, Rose, as the soldier is actually called, will stop at nothing.

Suzie Washington

Nana Iaschwili, a teacher from East Europe, wants to emigrate to America to start a new life. After landing in Vienna, the authorities notice her falsified visa and arrest her. Nana, threatened with deportation, would prefer anything except being sent back and escapes. She must keep on the move constantly. The police are hot on her trail. Together with other illegal aliens, Nana, alias "Suzie Washington", flees to the so-called "green border", the no-man's-land between East and West. The police, cows and lonely men keep getting in her way.