How would it be to make a documentary haunted house film? Not a fake documentary but a documentary film exploring a real address and its history. An address where misfortune occurs regularly. A place that is unwilling to behave itself. An evil address – but do things like that actually exist?

"House Of Atonement" is the story of an unlucky address: Schottenring 7 in Vienna. The Ring Theatre used to stand here. When it burned down, 400 people died. This is where the Austro-Hungarian Emperor decreed that a House of Atonement should be constructed, to make up for everything. And nobody wanted to live in it.
At this address a young neurologist opened his surgery. But he soon moved out, when one of his patients threw herself down the stairwell to her death. His name: Sigmund Freud. This is where the Gestapo set fire to files, destroying the Emperor’s legacy, which was supposed to be fireproof. This is where the fears of the Cold War were preserved in concrete: Vienna's secret Command Centre, 18 metres below ground, untouched to this very day. The essay film "House Of Atonement" takes a close look at this address, when misfortune has been repeated as if by some uncanny pattern over the centuries. Does some mysterious aura surround this place? A haunted house – in the middle of Vienna?

Since there are no pictures of the building that was burned down and the people who died there – at least no moving images for use in the film – the Vienna artist Michaela Mandel has created animations for the film: they appear like dreams and guide the transition from research to narrative.

Documentary (2016) / AT 95:00 min / Director: Maya McKechneay / Animation: Michaela Mandel / Production: FreibeuterFilm

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It is summer and five overly-seasoned college students have been given the task of writing a group paper on Franz Kafka"s "The Country Doctor." At first they are reluctant, but in a cloud of hashish they come up with the idea to film the story instead. Their film location is a campsite in Sicily, which they had already booked ages ago for summer vacation. The technical department consists of a couple "unique" men from the Vienna film scene. To everyone"s surprise, they even manage to get Kafka himself to play a supporting role in the film. KAFKA, GANJA, MANIACS parodies bizarre artists in a crazy road movie with some animation, video clips, and musical interludes mixed in. Incidentally, Kafka himself also gets the chance to revise his life story and finally live out the rest of his days in happiness.

Feature Film (2014) / AT 85:00 min / Director: Kurt Palm /Animation and Costume Design: Michaela Mandel / Production: Fischer Film

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