Afterwards: “Places of Childhood – Brigitte Kren” – on January 29th from 10:30 p.m. on ORF 2
Vienna (OTS) – Clarissa Stadler presents “kulturMontag” on January 29th at 10:30 p.m. on ORF 2, which deals with the life and work of the writer and master of the absurd on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Franz Kafka’s death this year. Contemporary literature in the form of the new novel “Content” by shooting star Elias Hirschl is also the subject of the show, as is the bitter satire “The Landlady” by Sebastian Brauneis on the situation on the domestic housing market – the director is a live guest in the studio on the occasion of the cinema release. Following the magazine, the artist portrait “Places of Childhood – Brigitte Kren” (11.30 p.m.) is on the program to mark the actress’s 70th birthday.
Kafka’s Cosmos – A search for clues on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of his death in Prague
Franz Kafka, who was born in Prague in 1883, was the only German-speaking poet to have his own adjective, which can be traced back to his friend and estate manager Max Brod. With the “Kafkaesque,” iconic parable “The Metamorphosis,” in which a good traveling salesman wakes up one morning as a beetle, the master of the absurd wrote himself into world literature. When the writer died in 1924, he enjoyed little more than local recognition. Kafka only published seven volumes of short stories during his lifetime. It was only with his friend Brod’s decision to disregard Kafka’s express demand for the destruction of his estate and to publish “The Trial” in 1925 and “The Castle” in 1926 that his posthumous global career began. To this day, Franz Kafka’s dreams and nightmares not only move readers, artists and writers are also fascinated. The Czech author Jaroslav Rudiš, for example, is enthusiastic about the crazy atmosphere, the loneliness and the misunderstandings in the novel “The Castle”. A good ten years ago he began to develop a scenic soundtrack for the text together with the comic artist Jaromír 99. It was so successful that the Kafka Band came into being. After the second project “America”, this has finally taken on the “process”. The result is a dark, melancholic club album. Even though his life and work have been extremely well researched, Franz Kafka has remained a celebrity shrouded in legends and anecdotes to this day. Who was this introverted loner who grew up in multicultural Prague, where German, Czech and Jewish cultures overlapped? A search for clues in the Golden City.
Bad machinations – Sebastian Brauneis’ film “The Landlady” in the cinema
In the last ten years alone, prices for rental apartments in Vienna have risen by around half, and prices for condominiums have risen by as much as 77 percent. According to a current market analysis, the demand for new living space remains unbroken. Viennese director Sebastian Brauneis delivers a bitter satire on the situation on the Austrian housing market with his latest film “The Landlady”, which is currently being shown in local cinemas. With no-budget charm and wit, sophisticated characters, pointed dialogues and surprising plot twists, he gives insights into the rental misery that he had to experience first hand. Brauneis himself was looking for an apartment for around a year and incorporated his bitter experiences into the film. Margarethe Tiesel can be seen in the title role of the cunning, malicious and devious landlady who, with the help of a “housing expert”, pulls out all the dirty tricks. A world in which fraud and fraud are the order of the day, law does not always mean justice and the first lawsuit is not long in coming. Marlene Hauser was in front of the camera in the role of the young tenant, an actress who is struggling with the challenging situation. Sebastian Brauneis talks live with Clarissa Stadler in the studio about low and no-budget as well as the conflictual issue of living.
“Content” at the highest level – Elias Hirschl’s new novel
He is a man with many characteristics: As a poetry slammer, Elias Hirschl took third place at the European Championships in Estonia in 2015; As a member of the indie band “Ein Gespenst”, he rumbles between post-punk, new wave and rap and has released his debut album; and as a writer he has now written four novels, whose wondrous titles suggest the strange stories behind them. For example, “My friends killed Adolf Hitler and all they brought me is this lousy T-shirt” or “One Hundred Black Sewing Machines,” in which he highlights community service in a group home for the mentally ill. The Viennese native catapulted himself from a respected young author to a shooting star on the local literary scene with the novel satire “Salonic,” in which he exposes the “Slim Fit” generation with brilliant wit and lots of evil humor. Now the author presents novel number five. “Content” is all about the ChatGPT generation, about meaningless listicles, clicks, start-ups, lots of content and the illusion of having a breakthrough at some point, even if the world is burning. The ludicrous and absurd is one of his favorite playgrounds. With his rapid linguistic cascades somewhere between Flann O’Brien and David Foster Wallace, Elias Hirschl, who celebrates his 30th birthday in June, once again achieves socio-political satire at the highest level.
Documentary “Places of Childhood – Brigitte Kren” (11:30 p.m.)
In the popular ORF portrait series “Places of Childhood”, cultural journalist and presenter Peter Schneeberger accompanies artists to their roots, to the scenes of their childhood and youth. In this edition, created in 2021, he travels with actress Brigitte Kren, who celebrates her 70th birthday on January 27th, in the Styrian Vulkanland and Upper Austria. Kren spent her first years in the care of her grandparents in southeast Styria. After a stopover in Bruck an der Mur, where she attended ballet school at the tender age of three, the family finally moved to Linz. She actually wanted to be a dancer since she was a child, thought up choreographies to the melodies she heard and enjoyed entertaining at parties with dance performances. “The thing with acting,” as the native Styrian herself says in Ute Gebhardt’s film, “happened along the way”: At the age of ten, her acting talent was discovered purely by chance, after she went to an audition for “funny reasons” and so on got her first leading role at the Linz State Theater – and was promptly praised by the critics. However, it would be a long time before Brigitte Kren could actually devote herself exclusively to acting.