Known for working in themes of emotional or physical isolation featuring pockets of people (sometimes ordinary Austrians) with his fiction and docu film POVs looking at hidden obsessions, hypocrisies, religious extremism, and sexual desires — there is a beautiful ick factor to the cinema of master filmmaker Ulrich Seidl. He began in the 90s with docu cinema until his 2001 break out film Dog Days won the Grand Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival – he would revisit the Lido several times over. 2017’s Import Export brought him to the Cannes Film Festival for the first of his two trips, and so after the Paradise trilogy he would then offer more docu cinema until returning to the world of fiction with Wicked Games being split up into two films in the same year with the 2022 Berlinale preemed Rimini (read review) and then the San Sebastián showcased Sparta. Here is everything we know so far for…Ulrich Seidl‘s Distanzen aka Distances.
Locking up some production coin before attending the 2025 Venice Gap-Financing Market edition, casting took place in April of this year for what would be an eventual shoot around the second quarter.
Written by Ulrich Seidl, Veronika Franz, and Severin Fiala, this is about Carl Schwert, a man in his late fifties who is interested in the misfortune of others. He organizes trips to destinations associated with dark tourism. At these sites of suffering and death, he feels alive. His life at home in Austria, however, is characterized by distance: his adult son Ben, for example, hasn’t left his room in years. When the young man finally gives free rein to his pent-up rage, Schwert’s world also threatens to fall apart.
Christoph Grissemann and longtime muse Maria Hofstätter topline the drama.
Re-teaming with cinematographer Wolfgang Thaler, Seidl is once again producing his own film via his Ulrich Seidl Filmproduktion GmbH outfit.
While his last six films weren’t on the Croisette, we think the aim would still be for a Cannes premiere. Venice is also in the cards. Toronto is definitely not an option, while he is normally not in a rush perhaps the Berlinale is a possibility.
