ORF-E | 2018
1 x 52 min
German
Worldwide

An arborist at dizzying treetop heights, the business-minded general manager who worries about the declining death toll, and two stonemasons to whom the afterlife also seems very close. “Work. Life. Death.” portrays the institution of the Vienna Central Cemetery using the people who work or spend their free time there. There are a few characteristics that the people here seem to share: For one thing, there is an openness paired with serenity which allows for an unusual closeness and a healthy dose of humor. Perhaps it is the daily confrontation with finitude that brings a heightened awareness of one’s own vitality. Just as naturally as the members of various religions are bid farewell here in the same place, Austrians work here together with migrants, Muslims together with Catholics and atheists. A place where, through the presence of the existential levels of our existence, the connecting principle is placed in the foreground.