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Manuel Wetscher's debut feature film Eklipse to premiere at Venice Film Festival

Inspired by the director's childhood, the film explores the stigma of HIV/AIDS in the 1990s through the eyes of an Austrian teenager.

The short version

  • Austrian filmmaker Manuel Wetscher's feature film debut, Eklipse, will hold its world premiere on September 5 in the Horizons section of the 83rd Venice Film Festival.
  • The movie is highly autobiographical, drawing from Wetscher's own childhood experience when the details surrounding his father's death from AIDS in the 1990s were hidden from him.
  • Set in the Austrian Alps, the film stars Moritz Hohlrieder and Finley Brown as teenagers navigating family secrets, social isolation, and the taboos of the era.

Key facts

  • Manuel Wetscher's debut feature, Eklipse, is scheduled to premiere in the Horizons section of the 83rd Venice Film Festival on September 5.[The Hollywood Reporter]
  • The film is inspired by Wetscher's personal experience of having his family withhold the truth about his father's death from AIDS during the 1990s.[The Hollywood Reporter]
  • The plot follows a teenager named Tomy, whose mother hides the reason for his father's hospitalization, and his friend Chris, who reacts with fear after learning the father has AIDS.[The Hollywood Reporter]
  • The film stars Moritz Hohlrieder and Finley Brown, and was co-written by Wetscher and Bernhard Jarosch.[The Hollywood Reporter]
  • Eklipse was produced by Austria's Eutopiafilm and Italy's Albolina Film, with global sales being managed by Films Boutique.[The Hollywood Reporter]

Sources