Benedikt Mitmannsgruber
1996

As if out of nowhere, Benedikt Mitmannsgruber has suddenly turned 30 overnight.

Surrounded by forests, cows, and farmhouses, he looks back on the past years.

In the attic of his parents’ house, he discovers a yellowed album containing a family tree. For Benedikt Mitmannsgruber, this marks the beginning of a whirlwind journey through his family’s past and his own absurd everyday life.

The journey begins in the early 20th century in a small village near the Czech border, where his great-grandparents decide to have 15 children. In the 1960s, his parents are born. They spend their childhood next to the Iron Curtain, deep in the Austrian countryside. No one really knows whether that little strip of land belongs to the Czech Republic or to Austria. In the 1990s, the curtain falls, and Benedikt Mitmannsgruber’s parents decide to have a son. He is born into a world in which he never quite fits, yet still loves—with all its quirky inhabitants and peculiarities.

A homage to growing up in the middle of nowhere. A love letter to forgotten small towns. A journey into one’s own past. A curious look at our society and a world that has gone off the rails.

Benedikt Mitmannsgruber’s third program, 1996, is dedicated to his two parents and four grandparents, who, despite a difficult upbringing at the end of the world with hardly any prospects, shaped him into the Benedikt Mitmannsgruber he is today.