MeTube 3: August sings 'Una furtiva lagrima'

The third part of the internationally award-winning MeTube short film series. This time the intergalactic music nerds August and Elfi conquer the opera stage and orchestrate their final adventure in an opulent manner. (production note)


Director Daniel Moshel choreographs sheer nonsense. The wit of his MeTube series lies in the seeming delusions of grandeur with which he lets utterly senseless fantasies arising from fictious amateur video skills run riot, while at the same time, implementing them in an amazingly systematic and precise way. The series’ three current episodes, as music videos, are especially paradox constructions: handmade indie-productions in blockbuster style. The trilogy revolves around the Swiss tenor August Schram, who in each video intonates a dancefloor, technicism-transposed aria of opera literature. Constantly at, if not on his side is a little old lady (Elfriede Wunsch), whose chronic bad mood peaks dramatically in part three. Each time the duo unexpectedly falls into a surreal scene from the BDSM biotope, in a world of fetish, leather, and latex attire. Whereas part one, which was released in early 2013, mutates “Habanera” from Bizet’s Carmen in four short minutes, in MeTube 2 (2016), Moshel & Schram take on Carl Orff’s "Carmina burana."

Part three, two-and-a-half times as long as the first, now follows the logic of expansion: located in an opera house during a running performance of Donizetti’s humorous melodrama L’elisir d’amore and furnished with a memorable cast of characters, MeTube3 flips abruptly from amateur video images to high-tech action film and into baroque, Fellini-style notions: the director wears a latex mask and ball gag. A mini thriller develops with a finely adjusted desire for destruction and clear allusions to the Mission Impossible, RoboCop and Terminator films, techno gadgets whizz through the spaces and telekinesis is often a familiar practice. MeTube3, which was released as August sings Una furtiva lagrima, considers itself an Opera buffa, fabricated from cinema’s twenty-first-century methods of manipulation, and also a laconically served satire of central European high-culture industry’s anything goes. (Stefan Grissemann)

Translation: Lisa Rosenblatt

Orig. Title
MeTube 3: August sings 'Una furtiva lagrima'
Year
2020
Country
Austria
Duration
10 min
Director
Daniel Moshel
Category
Short fiction, Experimental, dance film/video
Orig. Language
No Dialogue
Credits
Director
Daniel Moshel
Script
Eugen Klim, Daniel Moshel
Cinematography
Benjamin Paya
Music
Alin Cristian Oprea, Lidia Kalendareva
Composer
Gaetano Donizetti
Editing
Anna Kirst
Actor/Actress
August Schram, Elfriede Wunsch, Sira Topic, Thomas Weinhappel, Alessandro Bressanello
Production
Moshel Film, August Schram
Production Manager
Eugen Klim
Assistant Director
Moshe Kvitelashvili
Supported by
Wien Kultur, Stadt Salzburg , Land Salzburg
Available Formats
DCP 2K flat (Distribution Copy)
Aspect Ratio
1:1,85
Sound Format
Dolby Atmos
Frame Rate
25 fps
Color Format
colour
DCP 2K flat (Distribution Copy)
Aspect Ratio
1:1,85
Sound Format
5.1 surround
Frame Rate
25 fps
Color Format
colour
Digital File (prores, h264) (Distribution Copy)
Festivals (Selection)
2020
Berlin - Interfilm-Festival (Audience award for the weirdest & most wonderful film)
2021
Deltmold - International Short Film festival
Badalona - Internacional de Filmets
Cordoba - Anima Festival de Film d´animacion
Vigo - Galician Freaky Film Festival
Paris - L'Etrange Festival
Lissabon - Indielisboa Int. Film and Videofestival
Moskau - Insomnia Open Air Animation Festival
Praha Short Film Festival
Brussels - Courts Mais Trash
Zabok - Tabor Film Festival
Badalona - Cryptshow - Apologia del Gènere Fantastic i de Terror
Annecy - Festival Int. du Cinema d'Animation
Graz - Diagonale, Festival des österreichischen Films
Wien - VIS Vienna Shorts
2022
Birmingham - Flatpack Festival
Seoul - International ALT Cinema&Media Festival (neMaf)