ANGELO
Feature Film, AT/LU 2018, Farbe, 111 min., OmeU
Diagonale 2019

Director: Markus Schleinzer
Script: Markus Schleinzer, Alexander Brom
Cast: Makita Samba (Angelo 4), Alba Rohrwacher (Comtesse), Larisa Faber (Angelos Frau), Kenny Nzogang (Angelo 2), Lukas Miko (Kaiser), Gerti Drassl (Kindermagd), Michael Rotschopf (Fürst), Jean‐Baptiste Tiémélé (Angelo 5), Nancy Mensah‐Offei (Angelos Tochter), Olivier Baume (Arzt), Martine Schambacher (Alte Magd), Anne Klein (Junge Magd), Jean‐Michel Larré (Sprachlehrer), Pierre Bodry (Geistlicher). Marisa Growaldt (letzte Kaiserin), Christian Friedel (Museumsdirektor)
Camera: Gerald Kerkletz
Editor: Pia Dumont
Sounddesign: Pia Dumont
Production Design: Andreas Sobotka, Martin Reiter
Costumes: Tanja Hausner
Additional Credits: In‐house Producer: Johanna Scherz
Chefmaskenbildnerin: Anette Keiser
Tonmeister: Philippe Kohn
Sound Design: Pia Dumont
Tonmischung: Loïc Collignon
Casting: Kris Portier De Bellair, Nilton Martins, Judith Charlier, Martina Poel
Producers: Alexander Glehr, Franz Novotny, Bady Minck, Alexander Dumreicher‐ Ivanceanu, Markus Schleinzer
Production: Novotny & Novotny Filmproduktion
Co-production: Amour Fou Luxembourg, LUX
Markus Schleinzer, AT
In three episodes, Markus Schleinzer draws
a shocking portrait of a black man, Angelo, who
served at various courts in Europe in the eighteenth
century. Shocking because it not only makes his
inner conflicts tangible, but also mercilessly unveils
how ramified the Western gaze’s seizure of the foreigner
is; how deeply anchored and comfortable it
is. A directorial feat.
ANGELO is a curated buffet of reference points:
Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon seems the most obvious
influence on Schleinzer’s arch, acidly proprietous
manner of historical portraiture, though current arthouse
viewers may spy reflections of Pedro Costa,
Lucrecia Martel and the director’s compatriot Jessica
Hausner in its pristine surfaces. Which is not to
say its point of view is anything but singular. From
the opening shot, observing from a cool, high distance
as a shipment of stolen African slaves is offloaded
on the shores of Europe, Schleinzer and d.p. Gerald
Kerkletz place their camera in ways that knowingly
straddle the line between respectful remove and
cold, scientific scrutiny.
(Guy Lodge, Variety)
While it yields no surprises as to how people of
color are cared about or for in a white privileged universe
both then and now, Schleinzer evokes levels of
toxicity which are both effective and memorable in
the final frame of ANGELO, an approximation of one
of countless lives obscured in the murky history of
global atrocities waged against people of color.
(Nicholas Bell, Ioncinema)