Once upon a time revolutionaries

Movie
Original title	Once upon a time revolutionaries
Country of production	Austria
original language	German , Russian , English
Publishing year	2019
length	102 minutes
Rod
Director	Johanna Moder
script	Johanna Moder
production	Oliver Neumann , ; Sabine Moser , ; Veit Heiduschka , ; Michael Katz
music	Clara Luzia
camera	Robert Oberrainer
cut	Karin Hammer
occupation
	Julia Jentsch : Helene; Marcel Mohab : Volker; Manuel Rubey : Jacob; Aenne Schwarz : Tina; Josef Hader : Volker's father; Lena Tronina : Eugenia; Tambet Tuisk : Pavel; Daniel Wagner : Nikolai; Johann Bednar : garden owner;

Were once revolutionary (working title: Russenstory ) is an Austrian fiction film by Johanna Moder from 2019 with Julia Jentsch , Marcel Mohab , Manuel Rubey and Aenne Schwarz . The tragicomedy premiered on September 29, 2019 as part of the Zurich Film Festival in the competition section Focus on Switzerland, Germany, Austria . In January 2020 the film was shown as part of the Max Ophüls Prize film festival, where the film was invited to the competition and awarded the Saarland Prime Minister's prize for best director. The Austrian cinema release was originally scheduled for March 20, 2020 and was postponed to August 28, 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic .

action

The film tells the story of two friendly, liberal couples from Vienna. You get a call for help from Pavel, a Russian friend from student days. He was politically active in his home country and got into trouble as a result. On the spur of the moment, they seize the opportunity to help and finally not just talk, but actually do something.

So they help Pavel to escape to Austria. When he gets off the train with his wife and child, an exciting tour out of the daily grind begins for everyone involved. The structure of the relationships to one another seems threatened, especially since help can be defined very differently, and also because those in need behave differently than the helpers expect.

production

The shooting took place from January 9th to February 28th, 2019, and the shooting took place in Vienna , Lower Austria and Moscow . The film was supported by the Austrian Film Institute , the Vienna Film Fund , Filmstandort Austria (FISA) and the State of Lower Austria , and the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation was involved .

The film was produced by FreibeuterFilm in coproduction with Wega Film . The camera was directed by Robert Oberrainer. Claus Benischke-Lang, Nils Kirchhoff and Manuel Meichsner were responsible for the sound and sound design, Veronika Albert for the costume design , Martin Reiter and Johanna Hierzegger for the production design and Sam Dopona and Verena Eichtinger for the mask.

The actors Manuel Rubey and Marcel Mohab were already seen in Johanna Moder's feature film debut High Performance - Mandarinen do not lie (2014).

reception

Film.at awarded three out of five stars and described the film as a tragic comedy with starting difficulties. The plot shifts from comedy to spy movie for the first twenty minutes, then into drama, and then back to comedy. You need a certain amount of time to orient yourself in the story and understand the motivations of the characters. The focus is on moral questions about helpfulness, sacrifice and selfishness. Unfortunately, the discourse is in places too didactic. The characters constantly taught each other what was right and what was wrong, but actually addressed the audience with their monologues. Step by step the ivory tower of the would-be revolutionaries collapses, with the rubble giving them the opportunity to start over.

Elli Leeb found on filmpluskritik.com that the film was full of credible social conflicts and emotions, about two well-off couples who want to change something in the world, not least to prove something to themselves and then back to their own to land sheltered bubble. Leeb judged: "A film worth seeing with well-drawn characters and a strong cast".

Dominik Kamalzadeh found on DerStandard.at that the film about the “hypocritical bobos” and hypocrisy of the well-off protagonists was developing effortlessly from a moral comedy towards introspection. Layer by layer, the little mendacity of a cosmopolitan bourgeoisie would be removed. Moderate swipes are surprisingly subtle, having already shown her talent for coherent and ironic nuances in figure drawing in her debut feature film, High Performance ; something that pleasantly distinguishes it from domestic comedy, which tends to be coarse.