Berta Kammer

Two dancers move through an empty apartment and stretch out in the available space. From the window, you can see they are in Vienna’s Alterlaa housing project, a satellite city. Life feels opaque next to the strange beauty of the concrete walls and the green terraces; it is sufocating to live in pre-designed happiness. An elderly woman drags herself through the complex, trying to leave her life behind. In a place that houses 9000 people, you can find absolutely everything. That’s the fun of it but also the misery.

Bernd and Daniela Weigel not only make a good deal with the sale of a building plot, but also make the acquaintance of the happy buyers. The couple Viktor and Svetlana Galkin want to finally build a house for their whole family on the newly acquired 1000 square meters in a prime location. The Weigels' and Galkins' high-proof drink is soon followed by a rude awakening: a bomb could go off on the building site at any time.

Mrs. Pospisil lives alone in an apartment in an old building in Vienna. The elderly lady's increasing forgetfulness prompts her son to suggest that she move into a nursing home. But then suddenly a crack opens up in one of the walls of her apartment, through which something enters Mrs. Pospisil's world that will change her life forever. Paul Ertl's highly efficient and picture-perfect The Crack is a psychologically underpinned mid-length horror miniature that transforms into a utopia as casual as it is original as it is gently disturbing, and is ultimately also a powerful plea for the autonomy of older people.

SOKO Donau is an Austrian television series.