Scharang Teams Up with Strauss and Krisch
Austrian Press Agency (10/16/2009)
A two million Euro production based on a script by Silke Hasseler and Peter Turrini. Currently shooting of the film in Passendorf, Lower Austria
Passendorf/Vienna – At the end of April 1945 thousands of Jewish prisoners and forced laborers from Hungary were driven by small units of SS troops through the Austrian province. The end goal of the death marches was the Mauthausen Concentration Camp, where men, women and children were to be murdered before the Allied troops arrived.
The absurd story of a small group of Hungarian Jews, who were kept at the time in a hay barn and began studying the operetta “Wiener Blut” in order to awaken the sympathy of the farmers, is currently being filmed by Elisabeth Scharang in Passendorf, Lower Austria. Ursula Strauss and Johannes Krisch play the main characters in “Perhaps in Another Life.”
Strauss and Krisch, who performed together also for Götz Spielmann’s film “Revanche” nominated for an Oscar for best foreign film, play this time the rural married couple, Traudl and Stefan Fasching, whose son was killed during the war, reacting speechless when expressing their sorrow.
Also one must be careful on the set “not to be too much absorbed by the horror of events,” said Strauss, bubbling over with excitement in his interview with the Austrian Press Agency when talking about the film and his recent cooperation with Krisch. “We enjoy so much performing together that we feed off each other’s energy.” In addition to Strauss and Krisch are the Hungarian actor and actress Peter Vegh and Orsolya Toth, who were highly praised in Venice for their roles in “Women Without Men.”
In cooperation with the Hungarian Mythberg Film and German Filmline Productions, Silke Hassler and Peter Turrnini wrote the script for the two million Euro production of the Viennese film. As cameraman, Jean-Claude Karrieu contributed to the “optically very poetic dimension” of the film. Filming in Passendorf, an extremely picturesque village of eighteen people, should end in another week. The director hopes for the opening in fall of 2010.