Angelo (film)

Movie
German title	Angelo
Original title	Angelo
Country of production	Luxembourg , Austria
original language	German , French
Publishing year	2018
length	119 minutes
Age rating	JMK 12
Rod
Director	Markus Schleinzer
script	Alexander Brom , ; Markus Schleinzer
production	Alexander Dumreicher-Ivanceanu , ; Alexander Glehr , ; Bady Minck , ; Franz Novotny
camera	Gerald Kerkletz
cut	Pia Dumont
occupation
	Ange Samuel Koffi D'Auila : Angelo 1 ; Kenny Nzogang : Angelo 2; Ryan Nzogang : Angelo 3; Makita Samba : Angelo 4; Jean-Baptiste Tiémélé : Angelo 5; Larisa Faber : Angelo's wife Magdalena; Nancy Mensah-Offei : Angelo's daughter Josephine; Lukas Miko : the emperor; Susanne Gschwendtner : lady in waiting; Gisela Salcher : Citizen's wife; Dominic Marcus Singer : dignitaries of the prince; Alba Rohrwacher : the Comtesse; Gerti Drassl : nanny; Michael Rotschopf : the prince; Marisa Growaldt : High lady; Christian Friedel : the curator; Anne Klein : young lady;

Angelo is a historical film by Markus Schleinzer , which celebrated its world premiere on September 8, 2018 as part of the Toronto International Film Festival and was shown at the Festival Internacional de Cine de San Sebastián at the end of the month . The Austrian theatrical release took place on November 9, 2018. The Austrian-Luxembourg co-production is based on the biography of the African Angelo Soliman who was abducted to Vienna .

action

At the beginning of the 18th century, a boy was forcibly taken from his home in the middle of Africa to Europe. He is fetched from a slave boat by a countesse who picks him up and selects him as a “bird of paradise” for her golden cage, educates him, teaches him language and music, gives him access to education and prepares him for life in the aristocracy. Nevertheless, the boy who was baptized Christian and gave himself the name Angelo remained an outsider among whites throughout his life.

Biographical

Angelo Soliman was abducted to Europe as a child

The film is based on the biography of Angelo Soliman, who was abducted to Vienna . Mmadi-Make, its real name, probably came from the Kanuri people in northeast Nigeria and their tribe, the Magumi Kanuri . After his tribe was killed in a war, it fell into the hands of the victors, who traded it for a horse to Europeans. First he continued to live in their colony and was given the name André.

At the age of ten the boy was taken by ship to Messina , where he was bought as a gift for a marquise who took care of his upbringing. He was later baptized Angelo and has celebrated this day as his birthday ever since. After serving as chamber Mohr (valet), soldier and traveling companion of Prince Johann Georg Christian Lobkowitz had worked, he became after his death head of the servants of Prince Wenzel of Liechtenstein .

When Soliman married Magdalena, née von Kellermann, widowed Christiani in February 1768 without the Prince's knowledge, he dismissed him without notice. After their daughter Josephine was born in December 1772, the new prince, Franz Josef von Liechtenstein , employed him again as a prince tutor. He later became a member of the Freemason lodge " Zur Wahr Eintracht" in Vienna and began to cultivate a friendship with the Hungarian national poet Ferenc Kazinczy .

production

“Basically Angelo was an actor [...] if you can believe the first biographer who dared to write about his life story 60 years after his death, then he himself has contributed a lot to the fairy tales that surround him . "

- Markus Schleinzer on Angelo Soliman

Gerald Kerkletz and Markus Schleinzer will present Angelo at the 14th Zurich Film Festival on October 2, 2018

The director was Markus Schleinzer, who also wrote the script together with Alexander Brom. The film project was funded by the Austrian Film Institute with 790,000 euros and also received a distribution grant of 40,000 euros. The project was also funded by the Vienna Film Fund. Further funding came from the Film Fund Luxembourg, FISA, Kultur Niederösterreich and funds from the ORF film / television agreement. Franz Novotny , Alexander Glehr, Bady Minck and Alexander Dumreicher-Ivanceanu acted as producers .

Schleinzer said of the fate of the forced Europeanized African Angelo Soliman that he was known to him as a mythological city figure, comparable to Dear Augustin. In his research it turned out that what he thought he knew about him could not be proven in any way: “It starts with wrongly alleged employment relationships through romanticizing anecdotes to his end as a preparation in the Imperial Natural History Cabinet . It shows what transformation this person has experienced and how differently they exist in different minds. "

The film is divided into three chapters. At the beginning the arrival of the slaves can be seen, whereby the marquise becomes aware of a young African whom she is bringing up in the western style and baptizing Angelo. In the second chapter, Angelo is already an adult and hires himself out as an entertainer with the prince and as a conversation partner with the emperor. When Angelo marries Magdalena without the knowledge of his master, he is released as a punishment. In the third chapter you can see an aged Angelo, who ends up stuffed as a natural history object in the museum.

Schleinzer is not the first Austrian filmmaker to be interested in this character. Michael Glawogger and Harald SICHERITZ already devoted themselves to Angelo Soliman in their films. Today, when people come to Europe voluntarily, we find that less interesting, said Schleinzer, and he was very tempted to shed light on the idea of home, identity, belonging and foreignness in this context.

In Luxembourg the film was shot in the Château Meysembourg

Filming started in December 2016. A good 60 percent of the recordings were made in Luxembourg and its surroundings, in France, Belgium, Austria and Hungary. In Luxembourg the film was shot in the Château Meysembourg . The centerpiece was a palace in Luxembourg, which was designed as a black palace tinted with flames and had to look largely burned down in the course of the action. In France, the film was shot in a medieval church in Sillegny in the north of the country. The opening scene of the film, in which boats with the children arrive on the coast of Europe, was shot in Belgium. In Austria, the film was shot in a former coffin factory of the F23 cultural center in Liesing . Shooting ended on April 16, 2017. The cameraman was Gerald Kerkletz , who had already worked with Schleinzer on his feature film debut Michael . Tanja Hausner was responsible for the costume design, Philippe Kohn for the sound, Martin Reiter and Andreas Sobotka for the production and Lisa Oláh for the casting .

The film was shown for the first time on September 8, 2018 as part of the Toronto International Film Festival , was presented later in the month at the Festival Internacional de Cine de San Sebastián , afterwards at the Zurich Film Festival in the section "Focus Switzerland, Germany, Austria" and was released in Austrian cinemas on November 9, 2018. It was shown at the Viennale in October 2018 . In November 2018 there was a screening at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival in the Open Horizons section. At the beginning of July 2019 it was shown in the CineVision competition at the Munich Film Festival . In August 2019 it was presented at the Melbourne International Film Festival. A theatrical release in Germany took place on November 28, 2019. The film will also be offered in Germany on the Grandfilm platform at Vimeo .

reception

Reviews

In a review by the APA it is said that with Angelo , who ultimately ends up stuffed as a natural history object in the museum, the circle closes again when human existence is negated again. Markus Schleinzer relies less on narration than on impression: "Tableaus of loneliness, like installations, frame the excursus on otherness, isolation in a society." Visually, the film is reminiscent of Rembrandt paintings or an early Waldmüller, and Schleinzer breaks at specific points the history narrative at the same time and refer to the present.

Karl Gedlicka from Standard explains that the biography, which falls into the era of the Enlightenment, the measurement of the world, only provides the cornerstones between which the director spreads his cleverly constructed film and emphasizes cultural patterns of interpretation: “His later life as Freemason or as a family man gives him [Angelo] at least moments of a self-determined, albeit uprooted existence. One last appropriation after death: Angelo's corpse is prepared and exhibited as a display object with headdress in a showcase in the museum. A grotesque manifestation of the figure of the ' noble savage ' gets the upper hand again up to an all-consuming fire. Schleinzer's Angelo leaves no doubt that the underlying interpretation patterns also determine our view of the foreign today. "

Use in school lessons

The online portal kinofenster.de recommends the film for the subjects of history, politics, ethics and art and offers materials for teaching. There Susanne Kim writes that the film offers a complex basis in terms of both content and visuals for thinking about projections, authenticity, identity and self-presentation in social studies as well as in art classes.

Awards

Diagonal 2019

Nomination for the Thomas Pluch script award (main award and special award from the jury; Markus Schleinzer and Alexander Brom )
Award for the best sound design ( Pia Dumont )
Award for the best production design ( Andreas Sobotka and Martin Reiter )