FREE RAINER – Reclaim Your Brain

with: Moritz Bleibtreu, Elsa Sophie Gambard, Milan Peschel, Gregor Bloeb, Simone Hanselmann
director: Hans Weingartner
script: Hans Weingartner/Katharina Held
dop: Christine A. Meier
costume: Thomas Oláh
make-up: Martha Ruess
sound: Stefan Soltau
editor: Andreas Wodraschke
line producer: Karsten Aurich, Bruno Wagner
producer: Hans Weingartner, Antonin Svoboda
production: kahuuna films (D), coop99 filmproduktion (A)

shot on: digital video
screening format: 35mm, colour
duration: 124 min
Austrian distributor: Filmladen
World sales: The Match Factory GmbH

SYNOPSIS

TV producer Rainer has it all: big salary, luxurious penthouse, high life, hot car, even hotter girlfriend. The 30-something go-getter has reached the top by creating TV shows of the most stupid and vulgar kind. One day, mysterious young woman Pegah vengefully drives full speed into his car. After this near-death experience, Rainer has a major change of heart and – teaming up with the beautiful Pegah and a gang of unemployed social misfits - he sets out to prove that a conspiracy surrounds the boxes used in select households to estimate audience percentage. Determined to fight television’s dumbing down of society, Rainer and his new friends eventually go all the way with an intricate and ingenious plan to get the public interested in quality cultural programs. But the station execs who live off audience hunger for brainless TV are not willing to give up what they have ruthlessly built over the years...

Festival selection:

TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2007
SAN SEBASTIAN FILM FESTIVAL 2007 (in competition)
VIENNALE 2007