Wilfried Lentz Rotterdam

catalogue text steirischer herbst ’20 / Paranoia tv:

A lady instructs her handymen and has her chauffeur drive her across deserted country roads. In between various silent meetings, she goes to a church to rehearse the weirdest tunes, while flies dance on the windowpane like heralds of the plague. Like all of Dabernig’s previous short films, this new work is a small masterpiece. Its deceptively simple action unfolds along concentric circles on rural backroads. All the Stops thus ambiguously refers at once to a rhythmic plot and to the organ stops that serve as a switching station of sorts to the protagonist. So, instructions are given, conversations held, and music rehearsed, all with a mounting sense of absurdity. As carefully rhymed camera angles, textures, and lighting thicken, the world falls under some evil spell. The film’s growing tension somehow evokes the time right before the global outbreak. However, such contemporary subjects are ultimately in sharp contradiction to Dabernig’s consciously anachronistic practice of working with analog 16 mm film, giving All the Stops a timeless quality best enjoyed with headphones and in full screen mode.

Director, Script, Editing and Production: Josef Dabernig

Co-Production: steirischer herbst ’20

Camera: Christian Giesser
Music: Christoph Herndler

Sound design: Michael Palm

Cast: Ingeburg Wurzer, Gregor Schmoll, Zsolt Szalai, Wolfgang Dabernig, Susanne Szalai-Urbanek, Isabella Hollauf, Gyöngyi Bata, Josef Dabernig, Paula Szalai, Flora Szalai, Laura Szalai, Anita Toth, Christoph Herndler

Funding: if innovative film Austria at the Federal Chancellery of Austria, Arts and Culture Division, steirischer herbst ’20

Premiere at steirischer herbst ’20 / Paranoia TV, curated by Ekaterina Degot