Michael, Schleinzer gets inside the head of a criminal

The Austrian director Markus Schleinzer has been better known until now for being Michael Haneke’s casting director on several occasions.  He now presents Michael, his first feature film. It focuses on the relationship between a paedophile and his young victim.

Markus Schleinzer has gone for a sensitive theme for his first attempt behind the camera. The film focuses on five months in the life of Wolfgang (David Rauchenberger), a ten year old boy imprisoned by a paedophile in his thirties called Michael (Michael Fuith).

Michael (in the offing for the Caméra d’or), brings the director out of the shadows after years in pre-production. Markus Schleinzer has long avoided directing, preferring to head the casting team for established directors like the Austrians Ulrich Seidl (Dog Days, 2002), Wolfgang Murnberger (Silentium!, 2007 and Der Knochenmann (The Bone Man), 2009), as well as Mickael Haneke. He headed up distribution for two of the latter’s films that won awards at Cannes: La Pianiste (The Piano Teacher), which won the Grand Prix du Jury in 2000 et Das weiße Band – Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte (The White Ribbon), Palme d’Or in 2009.

Since 1995, the Austrian film-maker has also been trying his hand at acting, appearing occasionally on television and then the big screen, in, for example, Der Räuber (The Robber) by Benjamin Heisenberg in 2010.

The plot of Michael, which is reminiscent of a striking episode in recent Austrian history – the story of Natasha Kampusch, imprisoned in a cellar for eight years of her life by a sexual pervert – nonetheless deliberately focuses on the criminal. “There is always a relationship between two people who live together. But what would it be like in this kind of situation? That’s the story I wanted to tell,” explains Markus Schleinzer. “The criminal is just trying to live a normal life.“

B.P.

The film will be screened on 14 May at 3:30pm, Grand Théâtre Lumière.