1986
16mm, 1 : 1.85, 79 min., color
Script and direction: Hans Scheugl
Dialogues: Hans Scheugl, Elfriede Jelinek, Patients of the Psychiatric Hospital Baumgartner Höhe, Vienna
Production: Cinecoop Film
Camera: Tamas Ujlaki
Sound: Heinz Bretterbauer
Editor: Herbert Baumgartner
Music: Hubert Sielecki, Felix-Quartett
Actors: Elfriede Jelinek, Christine Frankowicz, Walter Häuselmayer, Walter Rohrhofer, Klaus Wittmann, Haymon M. Buttinger, Irmgard Sohm, Leopold Ziwotsky, Edith Nikendei, Elfriede Holzinger, Andreas Ribisch.

The title of the film promises a story. It consists of several planes of narration. Two women communicate in a language of art, working men in a pub speak in their Viennese idiom, patients of a psychiatric hospital arrive at speech through improvisation – all these diverging portrayals do not merge into one another but communicate by their proximity.

The planes of narration turn into the night, whereby night is less a matter of time but a state of mind. Just as the night seperates everything and emphazises its isolation, it links and covers everything up. The benightedness shows what it conceals.

Hans Scheugl, 1986

Festival: Rotterdam 1987