The unman documentary

The aggressor has lost the very voice that once served as the primary instrument of his manipulations. You can hear and see how life is draining out of him as he murmurs his final confessions in whispers, walking with uncertain steps through the rooms. The Unman by the Austrian Heinz Sobota (1944–2017) was a bestseller he wrote in the mid 1970s during imprisonment in Marseille, about himself and his crimes. The Unman now serves as the title for a documentary by Alban Bekic and Sladjana Krsteska dedicated to the former pimp and violent criminal, but above all to the women he coerced, abused, and in the end, was incapable of breaking down.

The unman documentary discloses a lurid world. Sobota, whose career commenced with his attempt to murder his father, presents himself one last time as an intensely charismatic figure. He relies on the impact of his rhetorical flair to present his demimonde wisdom, but he only partially succeeds. While the filmmakers approach him with interest, they are anything but uncritical. Three of the women exploited by Sobota report on their experiences, yet it is only his wife who expresses complete sympathy for the man. Bekic and Krsteska, who followed Sobota for several years, refrain from using archival photos. They wisely rely solely on acoustic means to conjure past stories of the individuals concerned. A film about the life (and death) of a misogynist. (Stefan Grissemann)

Translation: Eve Heller

The meanwhile deceased bestseller author Heinz Sobota provides a raw account of his past as a pimp in Vienna´s redlight district. Along with Sobota, the film also focuses on four women who have found different levels of reflection to look back at the chapters of their lives that they spent with him: an ambivalent, at times tyrannical man who knew how to use his appeal to the opposite sex for well-aimed manipulation. <i<(Diagonale 2018)