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PAST SCREENINGS

Griessner Stadl

with Lila Schwarzenberg

12.06.2023

Salzburg Das Kino

host Bernhard Flieher

with Lila Schwarzenberg and Lukas Sturm

6.11.2022  |  16:00

Filmfestival Radstadt Das Zentrum

with Lila Schwarzenberg and Lukas Sturm

5.11.2022  |  18:00

6.11.2022  |  11:15

Kino am Spittelberg

Austrian Directors Association Screening

host Barbara Windtner

with Lila Schwarzenberg and Lukas Sturm

24.10.2022  |  20:15

Cinema release Czech Republic

20.10.2022

Leokino Innsbruck

host Priska Wörl

with Lila Schwarzenberg and Lukas Sturm

10.10.2022  |  20:00

Graz KIZ ROYAL Kino

host Maria Motter

with Lila Schwarzenberg and Lukas Sturm

27.09.2022  |  18:00

Votivkino Wien

host Karin Schiefer

with Lila Schwarzenberg and Lukas Sturm

26.09.2022  |  19:30

St. Pölten Cinema Paradiso

host Alexander Syllaba

with Lila Schwarzenberg and Lukas Sturm

16.09.2022  |  20:00

Baden Cinema Paradiso

host Alexander Syllaba

with Lukas Sturm

15.09.2022  |  20:00

Linz Moviemento

host Julia Pühringer 

with Lila Schwarzenberg and Lukas Sturm

14.09.2022  |  20:00

Votivkino Wien

host Doris Priesching

with Lila Schwarzenberg and Lukas Sturm

12.09.2022  |  19:30

Cinema release Austria

09.09.2022

ORF cinema premiere Urania Kino

host Birgit Fenderl

07.09.2022

Worldpremiere Karlovy Vary Film Festival

05.07.2022

Start: Vorstellungen
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DVD Release 

10.03.2023

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Start: Galerie

SYNOPSIS

"You're not there to be happy."

"You're not there to be happy," says the father to his daughter at the end of a documentary film that tells the unusual story of Lila Schwarzenberg and her father Karl. Over a period of five years, daughter and father meet again and again to talk at the places that shaped both of their lives. In Prague and at Orlik Castle in southern Bohemia, but also in Vienna and in Murau in Styria. Over the years, the conversations explore all corners of their shared history. Of a father as a contemporary witness of the 20th century, whose childhood was marked by dispossession and flight, and who later became one of the most remarkable politicians in Europe after the Second World War. A statesman, aristocrat and revolutionary in equal measure. His daughter's story begins as that of a girl growing up in a family tradition dominated by hereditary princes and men. One who resists etiquette and aristocratic predicates, later slips into drug addiction - then gets clean and builds a life in London, leaving the shadows of the past behind. During the course of filming, Lila Schwarzenberg also repeatedly confronts her co-director Lukas Sturm's questions about her own history.  The film shows how Lila repeatedly tries to overcome the distance to her seemingly overpowering father. The result is a highly intimate portrait of two people who are both familiar and strangers to each other. Against the backdrop of a turbulent family history marked by strokes of fate, both make a sincere effort to find a way to each other. My Father, the Prince tells the story of many daughters, sons, fathers and mothers and their mutual, often doomed desire for recognition, appreciation and closeness.

Start: Text

KARL SCHWARZENBERG

Karl Schwarzenberg, born in Prague in 1937, has an enigmatic biography that could hardly be more contradictory. Born as the heir into one of the oldest and wealthiest aristocratic families in Europe, he was forced to emigrate from former Czechoslovakia to Austria as a child, when under communist rule the family was expropriated and expelled. This was a defining live shaping moment for the child, Karl Schwarzenberg. Growing up in Austria, with the duty of being an heir removed, he dreamed of becoming a journalist. But life had other plans. His uncle and head of the Austrian Schwarzenberg family line did not have a male heir and so Karl Schwarzenberg was adopted in his twenties to become head of the family and to run the family estate in Austria and Germany. He fulfilled this privileged yet difficult role, but his heart belonged to politics, human rights and his country of birth. The Velvet Revolution in 1989 gave him the chance to return to    his homeland and shape the destiny of his beloved country alongside Vaclav Havel and later as foreign secretary and chairman of the party TOP 09. Although visiting Austria often, the Czech Republic remained his home to this day.

Start: Karl

FILMMAKERS

LILA SCHWARZENBERG & LUKAS STURM

Directors

Lukas Sturm is a producer, director and author living in Vienna. For more than 20 years he has devoted himself with great passion to the art form of cinematic storytelling. He thinks and works across genres, always driven to combine quality content with gripping stories. Together with Lila Schwarzenberg and their production company, neulandfilm, he develops and produces numerous film and TV projects.


Lila Schwarzenberg studied film at NYU and anthropology and media at London University. She started her career in Vienna but lived in London for more than 15 years. She directed commercials and pop promos, has worked as a journalist, and gained extensive experience in the development and production of TV formats as a producer. She is the mother of five children and runs neulandfilm together with Lukas Sturm. For the production of My Father, The Prince, she found herself in front of the camera for the very first time.

THOMAS BRUNNER & GERNOT SCHAFFLER

Producers

Sabotage Films was founded in Vienna in 1998 by Thomas Brunner and Gernot Schaffler. Sabotage's work ranges from television commercials, web specials, short films, music videos, feature films and documentaries to high-end art shows. The company has won multiple awards at advertising festivals from Cannes to New York.Sabotage Films motion pictures and documentaries: Havana Marking's SMASH & GRAB, Daniel McCabe's THIS IS CONGO, Phil Cox's THE BENGALI DETECTIVE & THE LOVE HOTEL and Danfung Dennis' Oscar-nominated Sundance winner HELL AND BACK AGAIN. Furthermore, Gernot Schaffler served as associate producer on Ron Howard's RUSH and Thomas Brunner and Gernot Schaffler are Producers on KLAMMER - Chasing the Line, Feature Film/Biopic 100 minutes.

MONIKA WILLI

Editor

Monika Willi is an acclaimed and multi award-winning Austrian editor. She is mostly known for her work with director Michael Haneke, for whom she edited the award-winning films The White Ribbon and  Amour. She won the Austrian Filmpreis on numerous occasions and was nominated for the German Filmpreis and the Cesar. Monika Willi is member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

THOMAS VONDRAK

Editor

Thomas Vondrak is a Viennese based editor who has worked on multiple award winning projects for TV and Film with Lukas Sturm. Over the years they have formed a special relationship which is full of trust and respect which allows them to challenge each other creatively whenever necessary. Thomas started his career working for acclaimed Viennese pop promo directors Dolezal & Rossacher also known as the Torpedo Twins.

WALTER WERZOWA

Composer

Walter Werzowa is a musician, multiple award-winning composer and highly innovative music producer. He was born in Vienna but lived and worked in Los Angeles for more than 20 years. He has scored movies for Steven Spielberg, Wim Wenders, and wrote acclaimed documentary soundtracks The Devil and Daniel Johnston, JT LeRoy. Walter Werzowa returned to Vienna in 2020 with his family and is currently working on Stardust Cowboy.

PETER MORGAN

Executive Producer

Peter Morgan is one of Britain’s most influential writers and producers for stage, screen and film who has won a host of international awards including Golden Globe, British Independent Film and Evening Standard British Film Awards. The award-winning and Tony-nominated play Frost/Nixon received critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic before being adapted into a multi–Academy Award-nominated film of the same name. The film garnered five Oscar Award nominations, including Best Screenplay. Morgan's many other film credits include the award-winning The Queen, The Last King of Scotland, The Damned United and Rush. His extensive television credits include The Lost Honour of Christopher Jeffries, the critically acclaimed The Deal – the first part of Morgan’s Tony Blair Trilogy (BAFTA Award for Best Drama) - The Special Relationship and Longford.  Peter wrote the award-winning West End play, The Audience, starring Helen Mirren and most recently, The Crown, a  multi award-winning drama series for Netflix.

KAROL MARTESKO FENSTER

Executive Producer

Karol is Partner/COO of Abramorama and Chief Content Officer of Thought Engine Partners. He is a producer on Benji & Jono Bergmann’s Mau and Gelato, Thomas Wirthensohn’s Sacrament and Homme Less (’14 DOCNYC Grand Jury Award), Maura Axelrod’s Maurizio Cattelan – Be Right Back, and an executive producer on Jessie Deeter’s Hoof Dreams, Steven Rosenbaum and Pamela Yoder’s The Outsider, Adam Schomer’s series The Road To Dharma – Riders of the Himalayas, Daniel McCabe’s This Is Congo, Leslie Iwerk’s Ella Brennan: Commanding The Table, Amy Benson & Scott Squires’ Drawing The Tiger, Phil Cox’s Love Hotel and The Bengali Detective (’13 Grierson Documentary Award), Noel Dernesch & Moritz Springer’s Journey To Jah (’13 Zurich Film Festival Audience Award), Havana Marking's Smash & Grab: The Story of the Pink Panthers, and James Smith’s Floored. He was the production executive on Emmett Malloy’s Big Easy Express (2013 Grammy Award) and Harry Belafonte’s Sing Your Song (’12 NAACP Image Award) and Executive Producer of Danfung Dennis’s Hell and Back Again (’13 Grierson Documentary Award, 2012 Academy Award Best Documentary Nominee, and 2011 Sundance World Documentary Grand Jury and Cinematography Award Winner). Previously, Karol was the President of Film for Michael Cohl’s S2BN Entertainment and Head of Film at Chris Blackwell's Palm Pictures. Karol has produced over 25 television and satellite broadcast music programs, multiple Webby Award-winning programs including wetheeconomy.com and focusforwardfilms.com, and he co-founded FILMMAKER Magazine, RES Magazine, and the media content enterprises indiewire, cinelan, and conditionone. (www.karol.com)

Start: Filmemacher

CREDITS

Written & directed by

LUKAS STURM & LILA SCHWARZENBERG

 

Editors

THOMAS VONDRAK

MONA WILLI

MICHAEL INGRAM

 

Producers

GERNOT SCHAFFLER

 THOMAS BRUNNER

 Associated Producer

RAIMUND CARL

 

Music

WALTER WERZOWA

 

Executive Producers 

PETER MORGAN

KAROL MARTESKO-FENSTER

 

Production

MATTHIAS HORNGACHER

LUKAS MÜLLER-THIES

ROLAND RÜSCHENSCHMIDT

WOLFGANG TRAGSEILER

 

Camera

CHRISTOPH BECK

DULI DIEMANSBERGER

MIKE FRIED

STEFAN HASELGRUBER 

NINO LEITNER

MATTHIAS MEISSL 

ROSANNA STARK

CHRISTIAN STOLZ

RICHARD WAGNER

 

Camera Assistants

MICHAEL DOBERER 

JAN JANCIK

MICHAEL MÜLLNER 

 

Photographs by

TOMKI NĚMEC

PEDRO KRAMREITER

ONDŘEJ NĚMEC

NORA SCHUSTER

OLDŘICH ŠKÀCHA

 

DIT

JAN JANCIK

 

Sound

SINA GHAREHKANI

JAKOB KLINGEBIEL

FRANZ MORITZ

DIETER NEUHAUS

NORBERT PICHLER

ALEXANDER RÖMICH

 

Production Assistants

CHRISTOPH ADOLF 

MARKUS BARTOSCH 

FERDINAND HERWEI

ADRIAN HUTLE

KARL NEUBART

SOPHIE NEUMAYR 

DAVID ÖSTERREICHER

SARA PERNIKARZ

 

Make Up

JENNY BLADEK

 

Lightning

DOMINIK DANNER

STEFAN NEMEC 

JAKOB SLAVICEK 

FERDINAND STOIBER

 

Props Master

JOHANNES SCHASCHL

 

Assistant Editors

MICHAEL DOBERER

JAN JANCIK

BERNHARD KOSCHIER

SABRINA JOKSIMOVIC

BARBARA FICHTINGER

 

VFX

MICHAEL DOBERER

JULIAN GRUMER

 

Motion Graphics

JULIAN GRUMER

 

Sound Postproduction 

SONOBELLE RECORDINGS

 BLAUTÖNE 

MARX TONKOMBINAT

OVERDUB RECORDING STUDIOS

ERICH VODNANSKY

 

End Theme

WOLFRAM

 

Subtitles

TITRA FILMS

 

Translation

KIMI LUM

A coproduction with ORF 

And supported by the Austrian Film Institute (ÖFI)

© 2021 All Rights Reserved - Sabotage Films & neulandfilm



 

Special thanks

 

TOMKI NĚMEC

 

The late Max Vrecer and his family for letting us use footage 

from his Super8 Film “Kari, Vitti, Oscar”

 

Academia Superior – Institute for Future Studies

For letting us use footage from Surprise Factors Symposium 2014

 

Nadar Mansur of the Wanton Bishops

For letting us use the track “Fallen Angel”

 

David Černý

For letting us use his iconic Karel punk picture

 

Schwarzenberg Family Archive

Dipl. Ing. Heike Kellner

Archivar A.D. Wolfgang Wieland

 

Vaclav Havel Library

Start: Text
Credits

PRESSPACKAGE

PRESS PACKAGE ENGLISH

PICTURES PREMIERE URANIA CINEMA

PRESS REVIEW

Start: Presse
Kontakt

World Sales
Catherine Quantschnigg

 

Inquiries

 

©2021 Sabotage Films & Neulandfilm GmbH

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