BIRDMAN&ARTBOY VENTURES




RABIES
german title: TOLLWUT
length: feature
genre: horror

Tagline: Lacerated from the outside, corroded from the inside.

Status: treatment finished, screenplay in writing.


While a seemingly unstoppable virus rampages through the country, turning people into mindless, rabid beasts, a small group of people holes up in a remote house in the countryside, hoping to survive the plague. The self-appointed leader of this group is a young idealistic writer who hopes to create a working and harmonic society out of the group and who strives constantly and fanatically to uphold the order and rules he has chosen for this society. While the infected close in on the house and tension and intrigues arise between the inhabitants the writer slowly realizes, that he is losing control. Out of anger and fear he becomes one of the aggressive parts of his microscopic civilization, slowly turning himself and the others into equally rabid beasts, smearing out the initially so clean border between the healthy inside of the house and the disease-ridden outside. Who will survive, will the infection enter the house, or does the biggest danger lurk inside the warm living room walls, waiting to be set free and destroy?

"RABIES" strives to portrait the erection and destruction of a microscopic civilization, created by an altruistic but in the end power-addicted human being. The main character begins his journey as a protector of humanity and ends up in the dark place he worked hard to protect his society from. "RABIES" utilizes classical horror concepts like the rampaging plague to create a constant outer pressure to the group, which works as a catalyst for the darker inner working of group-dynamics. In the first place however, "RABIES" wants to be a suspenseful and sometimes shocking narration.







RULES OF CONDUCT
german title: HAUSORDNUNG
length: feature
genre: period drama/thriller

Tagline: The downfall of an era. The quandary of a concierge. The awakening of a beast.

Status: treatment advanced, screenplay in writing, short-film version screenplay completed.


"RULES OF CONDUCT" is the story of Franz, an aging, voyeuristic concierge in a Viennese hotel of the fin-de-siecle, in which the aristocracy of Austria lives out their fleshly desires. When the early fascist movements plant their ideology into the common mind of the Austrian society even the highly flexible ethical framework of Franz's mind encounters its hardest challenge. Will Franz find enough strength in himself to stand up against the arising powers, or will the wave of history violently sweep over him like it does over most of us?

Inspired by motives by Arthur Schnitzler, "RULES OF CONDUCT" portraits the downfall of the Austrian monarchy, as well as the rise of fascist ideology in Vienna at the turn of the 20th century. "RULES OF CONDUCT" is a suspense-driven "Neo-Noir", using the fascinating historic changes of the time as a stage for a thrilling narration.