Braunschlag

Television series
Original title	Braunschlag
Country of production	Austria
original language	Austrian German
year	2012
Production ; company	ORF / super film
length	45 minutes
Episodes	8 in 1 season
genre	Dramedy
production	David Schalko , John Lüftner
First broadcast	September 18, 2012 on ORF eins
occupation

Braunschlag is a television series of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation , which was produced in eight episodes in 2011 and comes from David Schalko (idea, screenplay, direction and production). From September 18, 2012 (beginning with a double episode in the main evening program at 8:15 p.m.), the series was broadcast every Tuesday at 9:05 p.m. as part of the new series DIE.NACHT on ORF Eins . The corresponding DVD was released on March 9, 2012. In Germany , the series premiered in German on May 21, 2015 on RTL Crime . The broadcasting rights had previously been acquired by Deutsche Telekom , which had made the series available in Telekom Entertain's Entertain Selection since July 2014 . It can also be found in the portfolio of the streaming providers maxdome and Netflix . A German FreeTV broadcast took place from October 13, 2015 at the Einsfestival station and from October 11, 2018 at the Bayerischer Rundfunk station .

action

The scene of the action is the fictional market town of Braunschlag, located in the Waldviertel on the border with the Czech Republic . It's not easy for Mayor Gerry Tschach : After a few failed business ideas, his community is bankrupt, so only a miracle can help. His marriage to Herta Tschach is over and his daughter Babs and her windy friend Ronnie , whom she brings from Vienna , want to get his money. That's why he spends the nights with his “barren friend” and business visionary Richard Pfeisinger in his ailing local disco . Other residents of the place are Richard Pfeisinger's wife Elfi, a "probably former Miss Lower Austria" and sister of Reinhard Matussek, who is disreputable as a village idiot. He operates a UFO landing site (which actually exists in Kautzen in the real world of the Waldviertel ) and is engaged in stuffing animals. Elfi's father Matussek is a wealthy textile manufacturer who doesn't know what to do with his children.

At the beginning of the first episode, Gerry and Richard hatch the idea of a fictitious apparition of Mary in a forest clearing and choose Reinhard Matussek, who believes in UFO, as a decoy. He actually falls for the alleged miracle and begins preaching in the village and proclaiming Marian messages. When Reinhard's dyingly ill and extremely wealthy father was finally healed after his daughter Elfi had put two guinea pigs on his chest, pilgrimage tourists flooded the bankrupt town, brought the hoped-for financial upswing and Braunschlag began to flourish again. Of course, old Matussek and the political pullers from Gerry's party in the Lower Austrian capital St. Pölten are also interested in making a profit from the supposed miracle. The nephew of the Lower Austrian governor finally comes to Braunschlag personally to influence Gerry in the interests of his uncle. There is also a metrosexual inspector from the Vatican "in the form of the courting inquisitor Banyardi", who falls in love with the German maid Silke who works for Gerry's mother on the farm.

But soon the situation slips away from the two drink-happy wonder inventors, which is increasingly escalating: "... between the madness of the locals, the pressure from St. Pölten , insoluble marital problems and the Vatican", the miracle of Braunschlag becomes a curse. Such a dove is announced to Gerry in the course of the further action as punishment for his sacrilege. And in fact the rest of the story turns against Gerry and his best friend Richard: First the Haitian pastor fled the village. Despite her boyfriend's sterility, Elfi becomes pregnant and does not tell him that the child comes from her affair with his best friend Gerry. The local bank is attacked by a stranger, but everyone in the village thinks he is Ronnie, Gerry's wife Herta cheats in a "cuddly zoo" and falls in love, and old Matussek is torn to pieces by a dog that belongs to his Bauxi, who ran away three years ago Looks like a mistake and is soon mistaken for an incarnation of the devil by the villagers. Gerry resigns as mayor and hands over his office to Banyardi, who had previously given up his church offices because of the German maid Silke. It is discovered that Gerry's neighbor, Mrs. Berner, had locked two men in the basement for years, who passed their time playing table tennis, and after the bank robbery got company from Ronnie, who the neighbor also locked up. Only when the three argue do they discover a hole in the ventilation shaft and thus get Gerry's attention, who calls the police. After that, there was an international media attack, as in the Amstetten case . In the end, the affair between the mayor and Elfi is exposed, and Richard runs amok with a chainsaw. At the same time, however, it becomes known from the will of old Matussek that this Braunschlag used as an illegal storage facility for Czech nuclear waste, so that the entire place is completely evacuated within hours. Only Gerry and Richard remain voluntarily without their wives and the two people locked in the basement. Silke returns to be with Banyardi, and Reinhard Matussek witnesses a UFO landing with the stuffed Bauxi.

occupation

main actor

Robert Palfrader : Gerhard Tschach, Mayor
Maria Hofstätter : Herta Tschach
Nicholas Ofczarek : Richard Pfeisinger, discotheque owner
Nina Proll : Elfie Pfeisinger
Manuel Rubey : Alfred Banyardi, Apostolic Visitator
Sabrina Reiter : Barbara "Babs" Tschach
Christopher Schärf : Ronald "Ronnie" Zeman
Simon Schwarz : Katzlbrunner, St. Pölten state politician
Raimund Wallisch : Reinhard Matussek, Dorfkauz and Marienseher
Branko Samarovski : Dr. Feist sen.
Thomas Stipsits : Dr. Feist Jr.
Stefanie Reinsperger : Policewoman Gerti
Erol Nowak : Policeman Hannes Salat
Adina Vetter : Maid Silke / Waltraud

supporting cast

Gabriela Schmoll : Mother Tschach
Libgart Schwarz : Mrs. Berner
Hannes Thanheiser : Matussek sen.
David Wurawa : Pastor
David Miesmer : Kevin, bank clerk
Martina Spitzer : Community Secretary Mucki
Ruth Brauer-Kvam : Gertrude, nun from the Vatican
Ronald Seboth : Russian mafioso
Inge Maux : mother of Mrs. Tschach
Karlheinz Hackl : Hans Berner
Johannes Krisch : Gerhard Praschak, media market seller in the basement
Bibiana Zeller : Aunt Cornelia
Klaus Rott : Detective officer
Michael Thomas : Leo
Doris Schretzmayer : Gitti, Tantra therapist

Episodes

Episode 1: A sacred miracle
Episode 2: The economic miracle
Episode 3: The Curse
Episode 4: The robbery
Episode 5: Bauxi
Episode 6: The new mayor
Episode 7: In the basement
Episode 8: Friends for Life

backgrounds

The shooting took place from April 12 to July 27, 2011 in the Waldviertel municipalities of Eisgarn , Heidenreichstein , and Litschau and the surrounding area. The individual episodes will be broadcast as audio films .

The ORF series, which, according to the APA, had already made waves six months before it was broadcast , was presented to the public on March 1, 2012 in the Vienna Künstlerhauskino . "Hundreds of producers, actors, journalists and fans" were present at the presentation, but what the APA said was the cast of Robert Palfrader (" Emperor Robert Heinrich I ") and " Castle Star " Nicholas Ofczarek, as well as the scriptwriter in charge and director David Schalko returns.

The series was released on DVD on March 9, 2012 and reached over 10,000 units within a few days and around 15,000 units of the 3-DVD box by the beginning of September. David Schalko founded the unusual marketing method a. a. with the “modern series behavior” of the audience: “The group of those who watch series on DVD is smaller than those who watch on television. But it sets the mood. "

The (new in March 2012) ORF television director Kathrin Zechner justified the early start of sales of the DVD box, months before the series was broadcast, by stating that she wanted to present Braunschlag “as a fillet of her program innovations”. The eight-part series is to be shown "in eight weeks without interruption (e.g. from football)". According to the producer and director, this is also important "because, as in episodic series, each individual episode is not about a self-contained story, but about a plot over eight evenings." ORF television film director Heinrich Mis does not want Braunschlag to be Series, but rather as a “new genre”, as a “TV novel to be understood in [eight] sequels”. It is an "Urösterreichische", with the "Who's Who of the Austrian Actor Guard" "top cast" ORF series with "Austrian [n] landscapes and Austrian [n] phenomena [n]". Incidentally, after Mis, as he announced at the beginning of September before the start of the series, there should be no sequel.

According to Nicholas Ofczarek, there was and is no quota printing for the production of Braunschlag . When asked whether the series will be popular with the so-called broad audience, there were different views at the presentation in March 2012: The actor of the Vatican Inquisitor, Manuel Rubey, considers Braunschlag to be “not broadly effective”. David Schalko weighs up “that this is just a 'question of receptivity'”. Alexander Wrabetz , director general of the public broadcaster ORF, suspects "that 'Braunschlag' is unsuitable for the international market due to the local color it contains and is probably not refinancing." In his opinion, a private broadcaster would never produce such a format. Kathrin Zechner, on the other hand, cheered, referring to Ofczarek, Palfrader and the director: "Whether Burgtheater, Kaiser or Schalko - that's how you can love ORF unmistakably".

In the opinion of Doris Priesching at the beginning of September (before the start of broadcasting) in an interview with Robert Palfrader in Standard , many already think the series is good. So she asked Palfrader if he "would [be] surprised by the hymns," which he denied. Palfrader justifies the fact that the fictional Braunschlag is in the Waldviertel with the fact that he and David Schalko, who comes from there, love the Waldviertel. They'd been thinking about what to do to shoot in this area for 15 years. Incidentally, Braunschlag was not a stroke of luck for Palfrader, as Doris Priesching suspected, but rather a "master plan". When asked about a sequel, he didn't rule this out as categorically as the ORF television film director Mis did in front of journalists (see above): "If David Schalko doesn't feel like it, it makes no sense."

Quotes about the two main roles

“Mayor Tschach is a half-farmer smart. He's not stupid, but he doesn't think things through to the end. He already has ideas and he has the ambition, but it would have been better if he had thought a few more times about what he was doing. And that finally falls on his head. In any case, he is not a good person in the classical sense [.] […] I put Tschach together from many people from my immediate environment, from people I like very much and who are very close to me. "

- Robert Palfrader

“Richard is a heavy alcoholic with an infinite void in himself and his life. A loser like many in this series. No hero and one who doesn't know how to get out of there [.] [...] The special thing about 'Braunschlag' is that it is an ensemble work. This is very rare in the theater, and actually impossible in film. There are no main roles in that sense. All are equally important, even if someone has fewer days of shooting. "

- Nicholas Ofczarek

Reviews

On the occasion of the appearance of the DVD box in March 2012, the press ascribes the potential to cult status to the series in advance.

News headlined the series in August 2012: “Crazy satire starts. Urösterreichische Navelschau with Palfrader and Ofczarek [...] "

Striking parallels exist to the middle of August 2012 in the Austrian and German theaters started coproduction who believe it is blessed of the Bayerischer Rundfunk : "Dorflich Catholic bigotry coupled with petty-bourgeois hearty Schlauberger mentality: What David Schalko with its ORF series, Brown beat based ' of a small Lower Austrian village is now coming to the cinema in the Bavarian version as a feature film. 'Whoever believes it will be blessed' is the name of Marcus H. Rosenmüller's bizarre homeland comedy, [...] "

The first two episodes of the series achieved an average viewer number of just under a million and a market share of 36 percent, which meant the best value for Tuesday on ORF Eins since 1993.

Awards

Braunschlag was shown at the 22nd International Film and Television Festival Cologne Conference in Cologne in autumn 2012 and was selected by the jury as one of the ten most important works worldwide in the Top Ten competition series .

Adaptations

On November 17, 2014, the American broadcaster Fox announced on its website that a pilot episode for a remake of the series had been ordered. This was initially planned for spring 2015, if successful, a series should then be started. Rob Riggle was planned as the main actor . As of September 2015, no series from the project has been ordered. According to David Schalko, this experiment was never piloted.

A good year later it became known that the broadcaster ABC had now ordered a pilot from Sony. This is supposed to be a half-hour adaptation of the series, with a twist that the main character of the series is not a mayor, but a mayor named Emma Wolf who has to deal with problems with her siblings and her dying father. In addition, as is well known, there is an almost bankrupt community and the mafia.

Web links

Brown beat in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Braunschlag on the Superfilm website .
ORF one kidnaps from September 18 to "Braunschlag". In: kundendienst.ORF.at ( undated ).

"Braunschlag": New ORF satire with Palfrader and Ofczarek. David Schalko directs the top-cast ORF satire series with Proll, Rubey, Schwarz and Krisch in other roles. In: Series website from ORF III Enterprise, spring 2011 (during filming).

Doris Priesching: "Partly like the school ski course". Interview with Robert Palfrader. In: Der Standard , (print edition) September 7, 2012. Accessed September 7, 2012.