Schauspiel, Drehbuch & Regie
The Archeologist Drama/ Satire (in development), Austria, 90. Minutes
Austria 2018, inspired by true events;
The ARCHEOLOGIST is a swipe on the world of science, history and politics and the human dealing with it. It is a mix of a dark satire including thrilling elements, consistently uncomforting the audience as presenting them a close-up mirror of today’s society. The protagonists are complacent types of the science and political world, who prove less capable and scientifically objective under pressure, abusing grey zones and the absence of scientific proof to not be forced to take a true position.
In the small town Lungitz, close to Mauthausen, three skeletons are found, when the Austrian Train Association opened a new trench to renovate the station. The area is immediately closed down and hidden from the public as media report, "to secure the dead remains and other eventual archeologic discovers", which have immediately been identified as people from the Romanesque area by some pottery found near the skeletons.
A team of archaeologists is called, among them IRENE (35), who arrives to inspect and "clean" the area from other potential archeological discoveries. The group starts to work through the earth layers, while some rumors arise, that the dead bodies are not Romanesque but in fact Jewish victims of the second world war area. More and more stories rise about a shutdown brick fabric in Lungitz, where Jewish prisoners were forced to work in 1943 but which could never be proved. The speculations start to divide the team of the archaeologists, as all of a sudden everyone starts to take on other positions in the ongoing discussion about what is true and which information is hidden or even manipulated. While a part of the group insists to not believe anything before there is a 100 % scientific proof, the other part uses the unscientific discussion to raise their voice, starting to mix personal conflicts into the dispute.