- Occupation
Director - Country
Austria
Hollaus Melanie
New Kaisertal City
Kaisertal is the last inhabited valley in Tyrol not connected by road to the rest of the world. The opening of a tunnel is about to bring change to the hitherto idyllic way of life there. In the short documentary satire, the young Austrian director and scriptwriter Melanie Hollaus plays with her compatriots’ racial prejudices via a utopian vision of the future in Kaisertal valley. The statements of African and Asian immigrants alternate with the long takes of the mountainous landscape, blending, as the film progresses, into stereotype-breaking images of an ideal society without racial discriminations, where also the dark-skinned children yodel. The extremely deep focus of a digital camera establishes contact between the people in the foreground and the pristine nature in the background, while Hollaus’ directing covers a whole range, from the amateurishly documentary to the theatrically exaggerated film. A short film with a big social message. „New Kaisertal City" should be seen as a political comment on the situation of immigrants in Tyrol.
Kaisertal is the last inhabited valley in Tyrol not connected by road to the rest of the world. The opening of a tunnel is about to bring change to the hitherto idyllic way of life there. In the short documentary satire, the young Austrian director and scriptwriter Melanie Hollaus plays with her compatriots’ racial prejudices via a utopian vision of the future in Kaisertal valley. The statements of African and Asian immigrants alternate with the long takes of the mountainous landscape, blending, as the film progresses, into stereotype-breaking images of an ideal society without racial discriminations, where also the dark-skinned children yodel. The extremely deep focus of a digital camera establishes contact between the people in the foreground and the pristine nature in the background, while Hollaus’ directing covers a whole range, from the amateurishly documentary to the theatrically exaggerated film. A short film with a big social message. „New Kaisertal City" should be seen as a political comment on the situation of immigrants in Tyrol.
Melanie Hollaus was born in Tyrol in 1980. Between 1999 and 2003, she studied dramaturgy. Afterwards, she worked in various areas of film production and photography. In 2002, she was the production assistant on the film Vollgas (2002) by Sabine Derflinger. New Kaisertal City (2008) was her directorial and scriptwriting debut.