German premiere

As a master chimney sweep, Franz Hohenberger was the manager of a Viennese business and a landlord in the Ottakring district. For the composer of Viennese songs and qualified actor, however, working above the rooftops was never fulfilling and he and his circle of friends founded an amateur film club. For decades, the main work of this club was only shown in private at family parties. It is only thanks to a chance encounter that The Green Cockatoo has now been rediscovered and restored for public screening by the Vienna Film Museum.

Poverty, oppression, murder, violence, love - this only surviving feature-length Austrian amateur silent film is a gripping crime thriller about everything that moves the world in the Ottakringer chimney sweep's workshop, which has been redecorated as a shady pub. We see fun-loving vagabonds and world-weary strizzis, the evil foster father and the oppressed rich heiress, we leave the dusty backyard, take a left-hand streetcar through Vienna in the 1930s to take a look at the stalls of the Prater at the time and set off for the grand finale on the tracks of the Westbahn.

As the only surviving feature-length amateur silent film from this period, THE GREEN KAKADU is a true rarity, full of history(s) - and exciting views of old Vienna.

The live musical accompaniment by the Viennese band WIENER BRUT, whose singer Katharina Hohenberger is the granddaughter of the film's director, is particularly appealing and charming. Pianist and composer Sascha Peres composed the music especially for the film and will also be performing live in Leipzig. Before the screening, there will be a discussion with Katharina Hohenberger, who will be able to talk "first-hand" about the reception of the film in her family. The film was taken under the wing of the Austrian Film Museum and shown for the first time in Vienna in January 2024. Since then, there have been several very successful screenings in Austria.

With film introduction by Katharina Hohenberger.

Austria 1932 by Franz Hohenberger, without dialog, 68 min.
Live music: composition by Sascha Peres, premiere (2024)