Festival Films A-Z

It Happened Just Before

Cast

Rainer Halbauer, Otto Pikal, Anna Sparer, Leopold Sobotka, Gertrud Tauchhammer

Production

AMOUR FOU Filmproduktion GmbH
Lindengasse 32
1070 Wien
Österreich
Tel.: +43 1 994 99 11-0
Fax: +43 1 994 99 11-20
E-Mail: office@amourfou.at

Camera

Jo Molitoris

Cut

Frédéric Fichefet, Gregor Wille.

Worldsales

Autlook Filmsales
Zieglergasse 75/1
1070 Wien
Österreich
Tel.: +43 720 55 35 70
Fax: +43 720 55 35 72
E-Mail: welcome@autlookfilms.com
Internet: www.autlookfilms.com

Distribution

Filmgalerie 451
Silvio Neubauer
Torstraße 231
10115 Berlin
Deutschland
Tel.: +49 30 23 45 79 11
Fax: +49 30 23 45 79 12
E-Mail: verleih-berlin@filmgalerie451.de

(Kurz davor ist es passiert)
A 2006, Regie: Anja Salomonowitz, dF, 72 min.

Synopsis

Kurz davor ist es passiertIt Happened Just Before is an artistic confrontation with the global phenomenon of trafficking in women. The film is based on real narratives by women who were the victims of trafficking which the director then re-worked into a documentary screenplay.
The stories are not retold by actresses but by people who could have a connection to events and places in the film: a customs officer, a villager, a bar-keeper in a bordello, a woman diplomat and a taxi driver. A film about false promises, exploitation and disappointment.
"My movie takes real stories of victims of female labour trafficking as a basis and lets them be told by other people. These people did not experience the stories themselves, but could have played a role in them. A diplomat or a customs officer for example. The officer says: "I am from the Ukraine. I am 34 years old and I don't speak German. I am being transported across the border, the customs officer doesn't notice me." They talk about false promises, debt and deception, the constraint, the violence and exploitation, about coercion, threat and slavery. Those are the mechanisms that define female labour trafficking. The law does not protect migrants; on the contrary, they are often criminalized." Anja Salomonowitz

Interview with the director:
What was more important to you in the beginning of the project: having the story in a documentary film told by uninvolved persons, or the theme of trafficking in women?
"Both arose at about the same time; the content found its form. Several initiating moments led me to this concept. One was the exhibition Gastarbajteri ? 40 Years of Migrant Work in the Vienna Museum. In this exhibition, there were two monitors with films in which women talk about their work and the working conditions in a fish factory. They spoke in their native tongues and the films had subtitles. My interest in the material led me to copy the subtitles. The result was the women's story in first person, in writing. Then I had the idea of having someone else tell the story, that is, of separating the story from the film or the associated image. This is unfamiliar. The story was to be told in first person by someone who obviously didn't experience it directly. This was all part of my research on trafficking in women and the theme of migration and the legal status of foreigners. Later came the ethical aspect: I didn't want to show the women involved."

Biography

Carmen (2000), Get to Attack Anti Rassismus Kinospots (2001), Projektionen eines Filmvorführers in einem Pornokino (2002), Das wirst Du nie verstehen (2003), Monument (2005), Mozart (2006), Kurz davor ist es passiert (2006)


Filmography

Carmen (2000), Get to Attack Anti Rassismus Kinospots (2001), Projektionen eines Filmvorführers in einem Pornokino (2002), Das wirst Du nie verstehen (2003), Monument (2005), Mozart (2006), Kurz davor ist es passiert (2006)


Dates

4305.10.200719:30Filmhaus
10010.10.200721:15Kommkino