Club Zero

Jessica Hausner’s latest film constructs a chilly social satire from a case of cult indoctrination: Miss Novak (an eerily chipper Mia Wasikowska), the new health teacher at a posh international boarding school, preaches the gospel of “conscious eating”, a supposedly eco-friendly philosophy with unimaginable benefits. A glorified form of anorexia, it entails eating as little as possible, and, eventually, nothing at all—a goal that Novak’s impressionable teen pupils work toward with alarming determination. The writer-director’s tense formalist visuals and sardonic undertones may recall the work of countrymen Michael Haneke and Ulrich Seidl, but Hausner’s singular tragicomedies, steeped in bold primary colors, are unmistakably hers. CLUB ZERO, Hausner’s second English-language feature, considers the boundaries between faith and self-deception, love and perversion, solidarity and groupthink, against a prim, preppy backdrop that clashes with the film’s mounting bodily horrors. Employing a deceptively jovial Tupperware aesthetic worthy of Instagram, the film is an unnerving comment on self-righteous lifestyle trends from one of Austria’s most eminent provocateurs. (Beatrice Loayza)

In the presence of Jessica Hausner, Martin Gschlacht (Camera) and members of the team.
The conversation on the 22nd of October will be sign interpreted. More info here.

Jessica Hausner: FLORA (1995, K), INTERVIEW (1999, K), LOVELY RITA (2001), HOTEL (2004), LOURDES (2009), AMOUR FOU (2014), LITTLE JOE (2019)