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.
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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).
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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.
