D.U.D.A! Werner Pirchner

“D.U.D.A! Werner Pirchner” is a postmodern homage to the Tyrolean sound artist Werner Pirchner (1940 – 2001) and his alpine homeland.

Creativity, wit, originality, perfection – in short: the uniqueness of his music and person brought Werner Pirchner together early on with illustrious heads of art and culture not only in Austria. At that time, word had not yet spread throughout the republic about the exceptional artist at work in Tyrol. Pirchner has never left his homeland. To see him therefore as an entertaining rebel with alpine-limited relevance would hardly do justice to his multifaceted personality. Jean Luc Godard used Pirchner’s music in “Nouvelle Vage” and in his cinematic self-portrait. Today, 13 years after his death, Pirchner’s sheet music is going around the world. The Berlin filmmaker Malte Ludin had already discovered him for himself when Pirchner’s early stroke of genius “ein halbes doppelalbum” (half a double album) was also published in Germany in the 1970s. 40 years later, Ludin embarks on a search. What is it about the Pirchner phenomenon, his work and the Tyrol to which he dedicated the film “Der Untergang des Alpenlandes” (The Fall of the Alpine Country) with Christian Berger in 1974? With an unbiased view from the outside, Ludin follows in Werner Pichner’s footsteps. A classic “Bio Pic” was not to be expected. The musical journey goes crisscross through Pirchner’s work and his homeland, which oscillates between tradition and modernity, natural beauty and commercial deformity. Friends, fans, promoters such as André Heller, Josef Hader, Tobias Moretti or Felix Mitterer talk about their encounters with the master who inspired them like no other. For Erwin Steinhauer he was the “most important Tyrolean for his becoming a man”.

Director: Malte Ludin
Cinematographer: Victor Kössl
Editing: Julia Drack
Sound: Peter Rösner
Protagonists: Georg Breinschmid, Josef Hader, André Heller, Felix Mitterer, Tobias Moretti, Christian Muthspiel, Erwin Steinhauer and many more.
Producer: Bernhard Holzhammer
Production Management: Jeannette Ziemeck
Film funding agencies: Austrian Film Institute, Film Location Austria, Province of Tyrol (Culture)
Television participation: ORF (film/television agreement)
Locations: Tyrol, Vienna, Graz
Shooting time: April – May 2013
Completion: Summer 2013
Premiere: Diagonale 2014