Carnival of Waiters
Due to a broken getaway car, three Russian jewel thieves are forced to take shelter in an empty Viennese coffee house. They knock out the waiter and call their fourth accomplice. Ten minutes until the new car arrives! Unfortunately two policemen enter the café and take a seat. As the only people present, the villains are mistaken for waiters – with fatal consequences.
Evading trivial clichés, “Carnival of Waiters” pays homage to the tradition of the Viennese coffee house in the form of a crime-comedy. The coffee house is portrayed as a site where cultural displeasure is countered with the pleasures of caffeine, where existential meet idealistic problems, where freewill meets inevitable fate and lawbreakers meet its guardians – encounters which are all pervaded by an aura of transience.
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Alexander PeskadorDirectorMy radical roommate, Discord of the Hyenas, The Last Cake of Carlo Cantuccio
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Luigi BennaloneWriter
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Alexander PeskadorWriter
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Klaus NobisProducer
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Mathias NobisProducer
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Alexander PeskadorProducer
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Ferdinand KoestlerProducer
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Luigi BennaloneProducer
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Angelika DolnaKey Cast"The Fox"
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Viktor KrügerKey Cast"The Bear"
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Andreas RadlherrKey Cast"The Horse"
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Wilhelm PfeifferKey Cast"Policeman"
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Julian WaldnerKey Cast"Policeman"
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Thomas ErlmoserKey Cast"The Cigarillo Smoker"
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Ferri π TrümmelKey Cast"The Waiter"
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Ferdinand KoestlerDirector of Photography
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Julian KastnerSound
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Elias MaximilianSound
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Marlene LenzMake Up
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Jenny FoesslMake Up
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Zizi Bohrer-LehnerCostume Design
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Nadine SchratzbergerCostume Design
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Ariane NeumannArt Department
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Vanessa MazanikArt Department
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KindergartenMusic
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Alexander PeskadorEditing
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Bernhard KiechlCompositing & Color Grading
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Project Title (Original Language):Karneval der Kellner
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Project Type:Short
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Genres:Comedy, Crime, Thriller
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Runtime:11 minutes
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Completion Date:March 15, 2019
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Country of Origin:Austria
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Country of Filming:Austria
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Language:German, Italian, Russian
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Shooting Format:RED
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Aspect Ratio:1.85:1
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Film Color:Color
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First-time Filmmaker:No
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Student Project:Yes
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20th Landshut Short Film FestivalLandshut
Germany
March 22, 2019
World Premiere
Official Selection -
Independent Days International FilmfestivalKarlsruhe
Germany
April 4, 2019
Audience Award -
Bolzano Film FestivalBolzano
Italy
April 10, 2019
Kurzes über´n Brenner / Corti in trasferta -
Fünf Seen FilmfestivalGauting
Germany
September 9, 2019 -
Filmz - Festival des deutschen KinosMainz
Germany
November 5, 2019 -
Filmfestival RadstadtRadstadt
Austria
November 8, 2019
Austrian Premiere -
filmzeitkaufbeurenKaufbeuren
Germany
October 6, 2020 -
Austrian Film FestivalVienna
Austria
October 9, 2020 -
Lund International Fantastic Film FestivalLund
Sweden
October 28, 2020
Swedish Premiere
Alexander Peskador, born as Alexander Fischer in 1993 in Vienna, commited himself to filmmaking after graduating with a Bachelors degree at the Institute for Theater, Film and Media Studies in Vienna. He is currently studying at the Baden-Württemberg Film Academy.
Foto by Pavel Brož.
It is almost impossible to describe Vienna without using the term “coffee house”. The long-lived tradition of coffee consumption has become an integral part of the cities’ identity. When declared world cultural heritage by the UNESCO-commission in 2011, the coffee house was described as “a place where space and time are consumed, but only the coffee is being charged”.
We wanted to pay homage to this phenomenon with a short fiction film; however not in the form of a brushed up commercial which garnishes corny images of an idyllic world with whipped cream and piano music. Although Vienna has again been named the city with the highest quality of life worldwide, the local attitude towards life is always accompanied by a morbid smack. The ravages of time take their toll and constantly remind us of our limited life span. Especially at a time when Vienna is running the risk of losing its status as world cultural heritage due to ominous construction projects, a motion picture about coffee houses cannot be a sweet matter.
I am glad that we were able to shoot our film at the location we had in mind when we wrote the script. The noteable Café am Heumarkt in the third district is an incarnation of all sensations I associate with coffee houses. Many of our meetings, discussions and rehearsals for the film also took place there and I am very grateful to the owners of the café who made this project possible.
The result of our undertaking is called “Carnival of Waiters”: a ten minute crime comedy, which celebrates the coffee house as a site where cultural displeasure is countered with the pleasures of caffeine, where existential meet idealistic problems, where freewill meets inevitable fate and lawbreakers meet its guardians – encounters which are all pervaded by an aura of transience.
Translation by Stefanie Fridrik.