Ana Arabia

A young journalist investigates a neglected piece of land with few habitable buildings. She cautiously penetrates this territory, which opens up before her as a labyrinth with ever new lines of sight, wild growth and wrecked cars. The movie is shot in one take. The technology has obviously contributed to the script, as an Ariadne's thread for a course whose stations are the encounters with the people who live there, their complex life stories and a wonderful mixture of nationalities and religions, different languages and lifestyles. There is an elderly Jew who has converted to Islam or a Palestinian woman who came here after her Jewish husband died. They dream of the utopia of a self-sufficient life and unobtrusive solidarity. Only the end of the film reveals where the outsiders' refuge lies. (Birgit Flos)

Photo: Austrian Film Museum