Wohin und zurück: Welcome in Vienna

Wohin und zurück: Welcome in Vienna

1986. Austria. Directed by Axel Corti. Screenplay by Georg Stefan Troller, Corti. With Gabriel Barylli, Nicolas Brieger, Claudia Messner. Welcome in Vienna, which had a successful theatrical release in 1986, is the brilliant concluding episode of the award-winning, three-part television mini-series Wohin und zurück (1982–1985). Adapted by Paris-based Austrian writer and journalist Georg Stefan Troller from his own autobiography, the series follows a young Jewish boy who flees Austria after his father is murdered during Kristallnacht. The boy’s journey takes him across France to the United States, where he struggles to integrate. Welcome in Vienna chronicles his return to Vienna as a soldier in the U.S. Army. Director Axel Corti (1933–1993) was a true media “renaissance man” whose many talents included writing and directing for radio, television, film, and the theater. In the 1960s, he produced some of Austria’s most innovative advertising films. For Corti, the entire trilogy struck close to home: as a boy, he was forced to flee German-occupied Paris, while his father, a resistance fighter, remained behind and was murdered. Digital projection. Courtesy National Center for Jewish Film, Brandeis. In German; English subtitles. 127 min.