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🇦🇹 Austria /Culture & Society

Manuel Wetscher’s Austrian eclipse darkens the Lido

From Der Standard · () German

Translated from German and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

In-depth Sources not specified Context piece
  • Eklipse, the only Austrian film at this year’s Venice festival, premiered in the Orizzonti section.
  • Director Manuel Wetscher’s debut follows two boys in the Tyrolean Alps during the summer before the 1999 solar eclipse.
  • The article describes the film as a convincing personal story that captures the eclipse’s lingering, if diminished, sense of wonder.

A solar eclipse appeared over Venice at the weekend, and inside the festival’s large Sala Darsena, audiences watched another kind of darkness arrive with Eklipse, the only Austrian film in this year’s Mostra d’Arte Cinematografica.

The film premiered in Orizzonti, the festival’s second-most important section. Debut director Manuel Wetscher takes viewers back to August 1999, when two boys, Chris and Tomy, test their protective glasses ahead of the solar eclipse.

The age when such an unexplained celestial event could catch people entirely by surprise has long passed. Its threatening magic has faded, the article says, but a solar eclipse can still impress even when everyone knows it is coming.

That tension also shapes the experience of watching Eklipse. Cinema audiences rarely enter a film without some advance knowledge, although a world-premiere festival such as Venice can still offer the chance to stumble into a story without seeing it coming.

About this summary

Originally published by Der Standard in German. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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