Vienna-based sales agency Square Eyes has secured international rights to Sebastian Brameshuber’s “London,” which will have its world premiere in the Panorama strand of the Berlin Film Festival, taking place Feb. 12-22.
The film follows Bobby, who is always in his car, driving back and forth on the highway that links Vienna and Salzburg. Other people travel that same route; he picks them up to save money on petrol and talks to them along the way: the soldier questioning what it means to fight; the supermarket trainee heading to see family; the academic looking at the history of the highway; and the queer woman about to get married. Different paths, different accents, different stories, most of them true.
Bobby listens, but also speaks about himself, about his youth, about aging, about his friend in a coma in Salzburg, who’s the reason for all these trips.
Mountains and forests rush by outside, broken up by junctions, barriers and bridges, the quality of light shifts along with the seasons.
Neither a documentary, nor entirely fiction, “London” is a “quietly political portrait of today’s Europe via its in-between spaces and those passing through them,” according to a statement. “Even in these strange times, anonymity and kindness can still go hand in hand.”
Brameshuber said, “With ‘London,’ I wanted to capture raw presence while using cinema to defy its gravity, creating a film that oscillates between the real and what lies beyond.”
He added, “The main action of the film takes place on the Westautobahn, or A1, a seemingly functional highway connecting Vienna and Salzburg before ending at the German border. People from across Europe make use of it for a variety of personal reasons, unaware of the historical abyss along its edges, for this road follows a line that was first drawn almost 90 years ago, at a time of great unrest.
“The A1 flows like a river, its banks accumulating stories and history like sediments—past and present, private and political, trivial and profound.
“Though strangers, the long stretch of time Bobby and his much younger passengers share in a confined space draws them closer. At times, they become something like a mirror, reflecting back to him the lives he could have lived. Their conversations may skim the surface, only to plunge into deeper waters, as the immediacy of their everyday lives intertwines with history at every bend in the river.”
Wouter Jansen, CEO of Square Eyes, said, “With minimal means and mostly dialogues, Sebastian takes the audience on a very engaging and at moments emotional ride.
“Set almost entirely on a single stretch of highway, the film draws a quiet, yet resonant portrait of contemporary Europe through fleeting encounters with strangers. We have been eagerly awaiting this film and are happy to be presenting it to the world starting in Berlin.”
“London” is produced by David Bohun and Lixi Frank for Panama Film in Austria.
Leo Barraclough
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