MON. SEPT. 28, 2015 – 7.00 PM

Directed by Ulrich Seidl – 81 minutes / Austria 2015

CAST: Fritz Lang, Alfreda Klebinger, Manfred Ellinger

A documentary that reveals what its subjects do in their respective basements.

The film is about people and basements and what people do in their basements in their free time.
The film is about obsessions.
The film is about brass-band music and opera arias, about expensive furniture and cheap male jokes, about sexuality and shooting, fitness and fascism, whips and dolls.

After his ambitious Paradise Trilogy, Ulrich Seidl returns to the documentary form with “In the Basement.” A film essay that is both funny and sad, it uses the director’s characteristic film tableaux to delve into the underground of the Austrian soul.

“The basement in Austria is a place of free time and the private sphere. Many Austrians spend more time in the basement of their home than in their living room, which often is only for show. In the basement they actually indulge their needs, their hobbies, passions and obsessions. But in our unconscious , the basement is also a place of darkness, a place of fear, a place of human abysses.“ Ulrich Seidl

 

This movie is proudly sponsored by the Austrian Consulate General in Los Angeles and the German Program in the School of Language, Culture and Society at Oregon State University.