NAKED OPERA

by Angela Christlieb
  • (c) 2013

    Synopsis

    Marc is a wealthy but critically ill man who is living life to the full one final time. Alongside his ordered existence as a human resources manager in Luxembourg he enjoys a bacchanalic life with young male ‘companions’ in the luxury hotels of major cities whose opera houses happen to be playing Mozart’s ‘Don Giovanni’. This opulently filmed documentary follows Marc on his journeys, accompanies him on his visits to doctors, and allows him to expound upon his personal philosophy of power, money and control over both himself and others. Marc’s life is uncompromisingly black and white. His structured routine is essential to help him ‘keep his head above water’. But then his life begins to unravel when he falls in love with a porn actor and follows him into the world of Berlin’s HustlaBall. Filmmaker Angela Christlieb displays a sense of the bizarre in this intimate portrait of a man who in spite of, or perhaps because of his contradictions, comes across as endearing and vulnerable. The filmmaker’s palpable presence behind the camera develops along the way into one of the documentary filmmaking’s central themes: the relationship between director and protagonist.

    Festivals

    63 Berlinale Panorama 2013, Berlin, Germany
    Discovery Zone Film Festival 2013, Luxembourg
    Hot Docs Toronto 2013, Canada
    DocAviv 2013, Tel Aviv, Israel
    Kino pod Baranami Kraków, Poland
    Planet+ Doc Film Festival, Warsaw, Poland
    Out Takes 2013, New Zealand
    Schwule Filmtage 2013, Bielefeld, Germany
    Transilvania International Film Festival 2013, Cluj, Romania
    Portland Queer Doc, San Francisco, USA
    Gaymat Festival 2013, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg
    Galway Film Fleadh Festival 2013, Ireland
    Lubskie Lato Filmowe, Poland 2013
    Fünf Seeen Festival 2013, Starnberg, Germany
    Quebec City Film Festival 2013, Montreal, Canada
    Vilnius Documentary Film Festival 2013, Lithuania
    Message to Man International Film Festival Saint-Petersburg 2013, Russia
    Reykjavik International Film Festival 2013, Iceland
    Pornfilmfestival Berlin 2013, Germany
    German Film Festival 2013, Goethe Institut, Singapore
    Festival Mix Brasil de Cultura da Diversidade Sao Paulo 2013, Brazil
    Festival Mix Brasil de Cultura da Diversidade Rio de Janeiro 2013, Brazil
    Festival des deutschsprachigen Films 2014, Lissabon, Portugal
    DocPoint Helsinki 2014, Finland
    Thessaloniki Documentary Festival 2014, Greece
    My Sound Of Music Salzburg 2014, Austria
    International Documentary Encounter of Bogotá 2014, Colombia
    In-Edit International Film Festival Barcelona
    F.A.M.E. Film & Music Experience Paris, France
    Cork International Film Festival
    About Love Among Others, Festival of films about sexual minorities
    Annual European Union Film Festival Chicago, USA
    Corona Cork International Film Festival,
    DOCAVIV - TelAviv International Documentary Film Festival , Israel
    International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, Netherlands
    IN-EDIT FESTIVAL Sao Paulo & Salvador de Bahia (music)