Berlin International Film Festival | 13 February

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-- The Forum
-- The Panorama
-- Retrospective
-- Kinderfilmfest
-- New German Films




Parallel: Panorama: The Virgin

The Virgin

The Virginby Diego Donnhoefer

Life on the road with a trio of junkies ­ an Austrian brother and sister and their Chinese lover. They fill their days and nights with stealing, begging, prostituting, pimping, lying ­ whatever it takes to get the next fix.

Writer/director Diego Donnhofer manages to avoid many cliches in depicting these heroin addicts, and his camera tracks the threesome through various cities in Greece and the Middle East.

Konrad (Joey Kern) and his sister, Nina (Kristy Hinchcliffe), come from a well-off Viennese family. There is a destructive symbiosis in their relationship ­ feeding off each other's physical and emotional needs.
On one trip home to chill out, their vaguely disinterested mother seems mainly surprised that they could be absent so long without calling home for money.

"This film is my statement about the condition of the world," says Donnhofer. "These people are more honest and innocent than any of us."

Owen Levy

Berlin 1999 - Berlin 98 - Berlin 97 - Berlin 96