Tizza Covi, Rainer Frimmel

»Every form of remembered story raises the question of truth. Veracity is a central issue, but we are also concerned with stories, because we are dealing with storytellers. And Kurt is a particularly gifted one. «

Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel about NOTES FROM THE UNDERWORLD

Filmography (Selection)
2022	Vera	(fiction)
2020	Aufzeichnungen aus der Unterwelt	(doc., co-dir.)
2016	Mister Universo	(fiction, co-dir.)
2014	Der Fotograf vor der Kamera	(doc., co-dir.)
2012	Der Glanz des Tages	(fiction, co-dir.)
2009	La Pivellina	(fiction, co-dir.)
2005	Babooska	(doc., co-dir.)
2001	Das ist alles	(doc., co-dir.)

Fiction

The loneliest man in town

2025

Fiction

Vera

2022

Documentary

Aufzeichnungen aus der Unterwelt

Notes From the Underworld

2020

Fiction

Mister Universo

2016

Documentary

Der Fotograf vor der Kamera

The Photographer In Front Of The Camera

2014

Fiction

Der Glanz des Tages

The Shine of Day

2012

Fiction

La Pivellina

The Little One

2009

Documentary

Babooska

2005

Documentary

Das ist alles

That's All

2001

«You can't escape cinema in Rome.»

Vera's father Giuliano Gemma is an Italian screen legend. He bestowed upon his daughters a childhood of glitz and glamour – but also the burden of fame. In Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel's new film VERA the protagonist is involved in a minor car accident in a suburb of Rome, and this brings about a collision between two contrasting realities of the city. Good-natured, generous and unworldly, Vera navigates these two worlds full of ambushes and traps… and despite all her doubts, she remains unwaveringly at one with herself.

«The question of truth»

If Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel don't travel for their film project, they plunge beneath the surface of their city. A fascination with the underlying melancholic aspects of Vienna songs leads them to one of its most outstanding interpreters. Kurt Girk’s intriguing account of his life is interwoven in NOTES FROM THE UNDERWORLD with the city's gangster milieu of the late 1960s in the shape of its legendary protagonist Alois Schmutzer; the two men are bound by a lifelong friendship as well as a serious, harrowing travesty of justice.

«Babooska schaut viel reifer und älter aus, als sie ist. Es hat uns an ihr fasziniert, wie man in diesem Alter schon dermaßen abgebrüht und illusionslos sein kann.»
Ein Gespräch mit Tizza Covi und Rainer Frimmel über ihr zweites Langfilmprojekt Babooska, das demnächst im Berliner Internationalen Forum des jungen Films seine internationale Premiere hat.