Southern Cross (2015)

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Movie
Original title southern Cross
Country of production Austria
original language German
Publishing year 2015
length 90 minutes
Rod
Director Barbara Eder
script Ivo Schneider ,
Barbara Eder
production Tommy Pridnig ,
Peter Wirthensohn
music Gerrit miracle
camera Xiaosu Han ,
Andreas Thalhammer
cut Christian Pilsl
occupation
chronology

←  Predecessor
The dead man at the pond

Successor  →
If you only knew how beautiful it is here

Kreuz des Südens is an Austrian television film from the country crime film series from 2015 by Barbara Eder with Andreas Lust and Franziska Weisz in the leading roles. The premiere took place in March 2015 on the Diagonale , the film was first broadcast on ORF on December 10, 2015.

action

The Viennese policeman Tommy Wehrschitz learns that his father has bequeathed an old school building in his home village in southern Burgenland and wants to sell the estate. Wehrschitz had left the village with his mother at the age of four and had not been in contact with his father since. During an operation, Wehrschitz is seriously injured in the head. While recovering from the aftermath of the incident, he drives to the village to meet with the mayor of the community. This would like to buy back the building. He is not welcomed with open arms by the villagers, only the grocer Eva, who is known for their mushroom soup, and the neighbor Traude are less hostile to him.

But he received postcards with holes that were sent from a children's home. He realizes that it is the constellation Star of the South and visits the home. All those children who had been left behind by emigrants were once housed in this home. The cards are from Juri, a boy with Down syndrome whom his father once took special care of. The village is currently preparing the emigrant festival, for which former villagers from abroad regularly come together. The mayor thinks that Wehrschitz is also an emigrant and could therefore become a guest of honor. He receives a badge of honor showing the star of the south, but undertakes to make a donation for the local renewal.

At a circus performance in the guest circus there, Wehrschitz witnessed a tragedy. Knife thrower Daniel misses his target in the imagination and kills the fireman Fenninger, owner of a woodworks, the last big employer in town, in front of the audience. It is initially unclear whether this is an accident or murder. After the police assume an accident, Daniel is released again. He returns to the village, some villagers, including Patrick, the mayor's son, believe Daniel is a murderer and try to practice vigilante justice. It turns out that Daniel also originally came from the village, has cancer and was determined to return to his home village with the circus to do something before he died.

Wehrschitz begins to investigate, but the mayor would like to let grass grow over the matter. Knife thrower Daniel is finally found dead, the police assume cancer is the cause of death. Wehrschitz, on the other hand, suspects mushroom poisoning after finding records of a similar case in the records in his father's house. The coroner, who is a friend of Wehrschitz, finds out that the mushroom soup was actually poisoned. Another colleague from Wehrschitz tells him that Fenninger was reported by Eva fifteen years ago for rape, but that there was no trial because the report was withdrawn. Wehrschitz suspects that Fenninger was the father of Eva's daughter Fanny, while Eva denies this and finally admits that knife thrower Daniel was Fanny's father.

Wehrschitz finds two heavily decayed corpses under a trap door in the school class. He assumes that they are the two people who disappeared without a trace at the 2012 Emigration Festival because both of them wore a pin. After Wehrschitz tells the village that he wants to replace the entire floor in the schoolhouse, he installs a surveillance camera there. The mayor does not want the floor to be torn out, as the reason he gives that the room is needed for the upcoming emigration festival. Patrick also puts pressure on him not to replace the floor and instead donate the money for the floor to the community.

Wehrschitz fakes his departure, but waits in the area. During the night he catches Traude tinkering with the school floor. She knew that Daniel was Fanny's father. According to Traude, the two victims in school also deserved to die because they left their children in Burgenland to pursue a career abroad. Just as she was left behind by her parents decades ago. Wehrschitz is knocked down from behind with a shovel and locked under the trap door. Patrick sets the school on fire, but Wehrschitz can get out of the burning school in time, but Traude is killed in it.

After a stay in hospital, Wehrschitz builds a new house in which he lives with Eva and Fanny, who are now pregnant. After a while, the mayor brought him remains from the fire ruins, including the video recordings from the surveillance camera. Wehrschitz sees on these that it was Eva who hit him. Eva sees this and asks whether he intends to go back to Vienna, which he denies.

Production and Background

The shooting took place from June 2014, and the shooting took place in Burgenland and Vienna . Filming locations included Siget , Schachendorf , Schandorf , Großpetersdorf , Rotenturm an der Pinka and Drumling .

The film was produced by Lotus Film , the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation was involved , and the production was supported by the Austrian TV Fund and the Vienna Film Fund . Maria Gruber was responsible for the production design, Atanas Tcholakov for the sound, Birgit Beranek for the mask and Christine Ludwig for the costume design .

reception

In Austria, 653,000 viewers followed the film when it was first broadcast on ORF. The production was nominated as part of the Romy Awards 2016 in the categories of Best Producer TV Film and Best Director TV Film .

The Tiroler Tageszeitung described the film as “mass-produced goods suitable for the general public”, which too often remained stuck in clichés to be really interesting. The sometimes bizarre southern Burgenland dialect comes across as cheap and striking, potentially surprising scenes are unimaginatively underscored by sticky “now it's getting exciting” music. Horror effects would be more reminiscent of relevant American parody films than they cause shivers in the audience. Humor beyond the mallet line rarely flashes. With the final sequence, however, a macabre and cheerful trick would succeed to save the film.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b "Southern Cross" on the diagonal 2015 . OTS bulletin of March 20, 2015, accessed October 23, 2018.
  2. ^ "Southern Cross": ORF country thriller with Andreas Lust and Franziska Weisz . OTS notification dated June 26, 2014, accessed October 23, 2018.
  3. ↑ derStandard.at: Andreas Lust in the Eye of the Headscarf Mafia: New country crime story to join in the discussion . Article dated December 10, 2015, accessed October 23, 2018.
  4. ↑ a b Southern Cross at crew united . Retrieved October 23, 2018.
  5. ↑ derStandard.at: Schalko's country thriller only saw 673,000 . Article dated December 30, 2016, accessed October 23, 2018.
  6. ↑ Tiroler Tageszeitung: Diagonale: The Cross with the South - ORF-Landkrimi Burgenland . Article dated March 20, 2018, accessed October 23, 2018.