ABOVE THE WORLD
Film - Spotlight Filmfest 2022

ABOVE THE WORLD

Directed by Adrian Goiginger

Info

Director: Adrian Goiginger
Section: Spotlight
Country: Germany, Austria
Year: 2021
PT: MÄRZENGRUND
OT: MÄRZENGRUND
Language: German
Version: Original version with English subtitles
Cast: Johannes Krisch, Jakob Mader, Verena Altenberger, Gerti Drassl, Harald Windisch
12+

Logline

A search for meaning and liberation amid the solitude of the mountains.

This is the moving true story of a young man who turned away from the established tenets of a profit-oriented society in the late 1960s and chose to live his life in tune with nature. As the son of the richest farmer in the Zillertal valley, 18-year-old Elias is expected to follow in his father’s footsteps and take over the family farm. Unable to live up to the expectations placed on him, the sensitive young man becomes seriously depressed. To help him get back on his feet, his father sends him into the Tyrolean Alps to look after a high alpine pasture called Märzengrund. Instead of returning at the end of the summer, however, Elias moves further up the mountain to the wilderness and solitude above the tree line. Here, at last, he finds what he had always longed for down in the valley: unconditional freedom.

Meet the director

ABOVE THE WORLD

Adrian Goiginger

Adrian Goiginger was born in Salzburg in 1991. In 2012 he and two of his school friends founded 2010 Entertainment OG, a film production company that enabled him to write and direct various short films, commercials, promotional films, and music videos. From 2013 to 2018 he studied directing at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg. His short films SOUND OF SILENCE and BILLION WALK were invited to festivals around the world, where they received several awards. His first feature film, THE BEST OF ALL WORLDS, was screened at the 2017 Berlinale in the Perspektive Deutsches Kino section and was awarded the Kompass-Perspektive-Preis for the best film in that section. The film went on to receive the Austrian Film Award for best feature film, best director, and best screenplay. Since October 2018, Goiginger has also been a lecturer at the Athanor Academy in Passau.

Credits

Screenplay: Adrian Goiginger
Original Material: Felix Mitterer, Adrian Goiginger
Director of Photography: Klemens Hufnagl, Paul Sprinz
Film Editor: Birgit Foerster
Production Designer: Maria Gruber
Costume Design: Monika Buttinger
Sound: André Zacher
Make-up artist: Tim Scheidig, Désirée Schober
Casting director: Angelika Kropej
Producer: Michael Cencig, Isabelle Welter, Rupert Henning
Production Company: METAFILM, WHee Film GmbH
Co-Producer: Philipp Schall
Co-Production Company: it Media Medienproduktion GmbH
Distributor: Prokino Filmverleih GmbH