Born in a small town in Lower Austria, Michael Pilz has realized over 100 films since the 1960s. His breakthrough came with a veritable massif central of European documentary cinema: Heaven and Earth (1979-82), an epic work about the Styrian mountain village of St. Anna. Since then, he has been a "solitary man," crossing the borders between film forms just as easily as those between art, cinema, life. This richly illustrated book is the first monograph about Michael Pilz. It includes several essays dealing with his work, an extensive conversation, selected texts and film treatments...

Romuald Karmakar's work in the fields of fiction and documentary holds a unique place in European film. It also stands in clear opposition to the dominant ways of the German film industry - both aesthetically and in its head-on treatment of several sore spots in German history. Time and again the 45-year-old director has engaged with "impossible" characters and "borderline" subjects: mercenaries, a notorious Nazi speech, the terror of being in a relationship, an imprisoned serial killer, or what it means to truly experience electronic and techno music. The book presents Karmakar's work in its...