Untitled
In late 2013, filmmaker Michael Glawogger set off to Italy, the Balkans and West Africa to create an image of the world— one that "can only emerge by not pursuing any particular theme, by refraining from passing judgment, proceeding without aim. Drifting with no direction except one's own curiosity and intuition." Rather than following identifiable themes, Glawogger sought to absorb his surroundings, and to create something organic and free. Four months and nineteen days into his journey, he perished in Liberia from an acute case of malaria. His colleague and film editor, Monika Willi, created a film from Glawogger’s footage. Combining hard cuts with a gentler style of editing, Willi has shaped a fascinating, visually stunning document. Untitled is a restless film about movement and travelling, about the unknown and the other.
Michael Glawogger was born in Graz, Austria, and studied at the San Francisco Art Institute and the Vienna Film Academy. He started as an assistant camera operator, and later worked as a cinematographer, screenwriter, and director. He made numerous internationally-acclaimed shorts, documentaries, and feature films. He had recently devoted himself to literary writing. Michael Glawogger died in Monrovia, Liberia, in April of 2014 while shooting Untitled.
Monika Willi is a film editor who has worked with Michael Glawogger, Michael Haneke, Barbara Albert, and Florian Flicker. She was nominated for the Austrian Film Prize for her work on Whores’ Glory (Glawogger, 2011), and the German Film Prize for The White Ribbon (Haneke, 2009). She received the Austrian Film Prize for Best Film Editing for The Dead and the Living (Barbara Albert, 2012), and the Filmplus Award for Best Feature Film Editing for The White Ribbon (as well as for Barbara Eder’s Thank You for Bombing [2016]).