Erz Schmerz

To kick things off: The setting for ASYL, a disturbing episode from the Impulse series, is an ill-reputed barrack camp in Graz, whose residents have their say. Large families live there in a single room, 30 metres from the nearest water pipe and 100 metres from the toilet. Around Eisenerz in Styria, a millennia-old form of labour is dying: the ore mine. Frankfurter precisely documents the pain that the transformation of the mining industry - surviving economic crises and wars - has wreaked on the trades, their families and even the emaciated landscape. But it also shows the heart with which the people of Eisenerz cling to their mountain, the ‘Styrian loaf of bread’ that has nourished them for so long. (Brigitte Mayr)

Thu 20 Feb: With an introduction by Brigitte Mayr and discussion with Andrea Christa

Director: Bernhard Frankfurter
Country: A
Year: 1984
Written by: Bernhard Frankfurter
Camera: Felix Bierbaum
Assistant director: Andrea Christa
Format: DCP, colour
Version: German original version
Length: 51 min

PREFILM: Asylum - Scenes from a Milieu
Director: Bernhard Frankfurter
Country: A
Year: 1973
Written by: Bernhard Frankfurter
Cinematography: Helmut Fibich, Alfons Wassmuth
Format: DCP, colour
Version: German original version
Length: 29 min