Bridge To Monticello

110 minutes, BetaSP, 4:3, colour, PAL

A film like Bridge to Monticello by Michael Pilz is tantamount to a resistance against the usual everyday television, where interviewers will rudely interrupt their conversation partners whenever the latter take more than eight seconds to respond, and formulate the presumed answer themselves in an inane three-second simplification. Pilz’s portrait of a Styrian painter who lived in the U.S. at the time of the filming talking about his work, but also about the North American way of life leaves room for images and time for genuine conversation. We are able to share in the production of thoughts as they are being expressed and also in silences which are as much part of languages as pauses are part of music. This film takes its conversation partner seriously without concealing its perspective.

Thomas Rothschild,
FREITAG, Berlin, 6 April 1999,
DIE RHEINPFALZ, 22 April 1999

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Original title Bridge to Monticello
English title Bridge To Monticello
Produced by Michael Pilz
Concept and realization by Michael Pilz
Cinematography by Michael Pilz
Original sound by Michael Pilz
Edited by Michael Pilz
Featuring Josef Schützenhöfer

Austria 1998
Language German and English
English subtitles (english version)

First public screening 31 January 1999, International Filmfestival Rotterdam

Festivals Rotterdam (NL), Graz (AT), Duisburg (DE), 35th Summer Film School Uherské Hradiště (CZ)

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