Moss on the Stones

Jutta, the daughter of a baron, is engaged to Mehlmann, a fashion-conscious and energetic, yet shallow, businessman who plans to turn his fiancée’s family estate, a decaying Baroque palace, into an exclusive resort for the social elite. Meanwhile, the old baron, less than enthusiastic about the grandiose ideas of his future son-in-law and the obtrusively loud new world, prefers to wander the physical and mental paths of the past – „the mossy stones of the monarchy”. Over time, Jutta also grows increasingly tired of her lover’s ambitions and begins to harbour warm feelings towards Petrik, Mehlmann’s friend and a writer.

The visions of future of the impetuously modernising young republic collide with memories of the once mighty empire and dreary Nazi occupation, vividly reflecting the tensions that haunted the Austrian society and collective self-consciousness of the 1960s.

Lhotsky’s feature debut is considered the most remarkable Austrian film of the 1960s and an early example of the local „new wave”.

The screening presents the premiere of a new 2K DCP derived from a 4K digitisation of the original 35mm camera negatives made by Filmarchiv Austria. The original negatives are being kept at Filmarchiv Austria’s vaults in Laxenburg, Lower Austria.

Eva Näripea