Import Export NEW HORIZONS International Competition

Cast:
Maria Hofstätter, Georg Friedrich, Herbert Fritsch, Susanne Lothar, Natalya Baranova

Two individual fates move in opposite directions. Olga, a nurse from the Ukraine, abandons her family to look for a better life in the West and ends up working as a cleaning woman in a geriatric ward in Austria. Paul, an unemployed security guard from Vienna, is looking a reason to get up in the mornings and heads East with his stepfather, ending up in the Ukraine. Two young people on the move, eager to start a new life, confronted with a rough reality. Two stories about the pursuit of happiness and material advantages, about the darker sides of sexuality and death, and about the difficulties of cleaning the teeth of a stuffed fox.

IFF Cannes 2007

I don't seek to entertain people with my films, but to touch them, perhaps even disturb them. My films are critical, not of individuals, but of society. If beyond giving pleasure, a film is able to create an opening in viewers that has a connection with their own lives, then it has achieved a lot. I want the people in the theatre to be confronted with themselves.

I always try to put a touch of humor in my films. I think it's important to have a sense of humor in life, so that you can stand the things that happen to you. And I always try to find a compromise between comedy and tragedy.

Ulrich Seidl