Hit with “Grease”. Thomas Stipsitz A rare feat. The feel-good comedy ranked 6th in the 2023 cinema chart. No film from Austria has managed to achieve such a great finish in a long time. 283,783 cinema tickets were sold, more than many Hollywood blockbusters.

In a KURIER interview, Stipsitz was surprised and delighted by the win. “I wanted to make a film that showed Greece and the people there,” said the co-author. Directed by Claudia Jüptner-Jonstorff and Eva Spreitzhofer.

Stipsitz plays Johannes, a Viennese hotel heir who tries in vain to comply with the demands of his parents (“Single Bells” duo Mona Seyfried and Erwin Steinhauer) and his fiancee (Katharina Strasser). A surprising message – in the form of a will revealing his real father – leads the amateur guitarist, branded a failure, to Greece. Once there, he once again expresses his wishes for inheritance. Ilias (Kostas Antalopoulos), a taxi driver, mayor and notary all together, tells tall tales, as does his nemesis Reina (Claudia Kotel).

Stipsits says not everyone believes the film. “Do you even have the guts to make a movie about it?” Some would have said: “Anyway, I told the people: I know the country for 20 years, you can trust a little.”

Today (February 28, 8:15 p.m., ORF2) ORF televises the film for the first time, funded by a film/television deal.