IMDb > Import/Export (2007)

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Import/Export (2007) -- kino-zeit.de - Trailer (Flash)

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Overview

User Rating:
7.3/10   1,248 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?
Up 1% in popularity this week. See why on IMDbPro.
Director:
Writers:
Veronika Franz (writer)
Ulrich Seidl (writer)
Contact:
View company contact information for Import/Export on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
31 July 2009 (USA) more
Genre:
Plot:
A nurse from the Ukraine searches for a better life in the West, while an unemployed security guard from Austria heads East for the same reason. | add synopsis
Awards:
1 win & 1 nomination more
User Comments:
Life without home more (10 total)

Cast

  (Credited cast)
Ekateryna Rak ... Olga
Paul Hofmann ... Pauli
Michael Thomas ... Michael
Maria Hofstätter ... Schwester Maria
Georg Friedrich ... Pfleger Andi
Natalya Baranova ... Olgas Freundin - Ukraine (as Natalija Baranova)
Natalja Epureanu ... Olgas Freundin
Erich Finsches ... Erich Schlager
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Herbert Fritsch ... Paulis Vater
Brigitte Kren
Peter Linduska
Susanne Lothar ... Paulis Mutter
Petra Morzé ... Mother in Family Home
Thomas Nash
Lidiya Oleksandrivna Savka
Anastasia Sergeyeva ... Hotel room prostitute
Dirk Stermann ... Ausbilder für Putzfrauen
Christina York
more
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Additional Details

Runtime:
141 min | South Korea:123 min | Germany:135 min
Color:
Aspect Ratio:
1.66 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Filming Locations:

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2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful.
Life without home, 20 October 2009
9/10
Author: paul2001sw-1 (paul2001sw@yahoo.co.uk) from Saffron Walden, UK

Many film's about sad, boring lives are themselves boring (and not truly sad). Not so Ulrich Siedl's remarkable 'Import/Export', which tells a simple, and fundamentally depressing, story at great length, but with compelling naturalism. Not only that, but Siedl shows an uncanny ability to find interesting shots: the film has a haunting quality, and in every scene there's something that draws the viewer's attention and makes one think. The plot, such as it is, tells the story of two people, a Ukranian woman to emigrates to Austria in search of a better life, and an Austrian man who ends up in Ukraine; in Hollywood, their stories would inevitably be drawn together, but Siedl keeps them in parallel throughout. One link is that both are involved (at different ends) in the Ukranian sex industry, and Siedl's uncompromising depiction of this attracted some notoriety for this movie; but it's a long way from a titillating film.

The acting is excellent, and the way the characters evolve is fascinating. Ekatarina Rak's Olga is allowed to inch slowly towards a better life in Austria, albeit at a high price. Paul Hofmann's Pauli is even more interesting, a loner and misfit denied the chance by his environment to become a good person; disaffected from his present life, he can find no route map to another one. Not only do the two stories not converge, but one ends with a lengthy series of hospital scenes in which the origin of the central character is of decreasing importance; this could be a film about lonely people anywhere. Indeed, for all the film's "naturalism", it's depiction of social reality might perhaps be questioned, I would have guessed this movie was set in 1997 rather than 10 years later (although my own estimate of reality is based on the newspapers, so it may well be this that is wrong). Certainly the film is not an explicit political indictment. But it is a sympathetic and original insight into existential loneliness and the harshness of life in the modern world.

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Message Boards

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Recent Posts (updated daily)User
Horrible film zanmorrow
Its not a comedy, folks.... diodevox
Where is this available for purchase / to be watched? Rehayn
Is there interest in austrian movies? muzgaf
21st Century Films Set in Ukraine br3nd4n
Details beyond the title implication? afriedel
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