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.

  • Alexander Peskador
    Director
    My radical roommate, Discord of the Hyenas, The Last Cake of Carlo Cantuccio
  • Luigi Bennalone
    Writer
  • Alexander Peskador
    Writer
  • Klaus Nobis
    Producer
  • Mathias Nobis
    Producer
  • Alexander Peskador
    Producer
  • Ferdinand Koestler
    Producer
  • Luigi Bennalone
    Producer
  • Angelika Dolna
    Key Cast
    "The Fox"
  • Viktor Krüger
    Key Cast
    "The Bear"
  • Andreas Radlherr
    Key Cast
    "The Horse"
  • Wilhelm Pfeiffer
    Key Cast
    "Policeman"
  • Julian Waldner
    Key Cast
    "Policeman"
  • Thomas Erlmoser
    Key Cast
    "The Cigarillo Smoker"
  • Ferri π Trümmel
    Key Cast
    "The Waiter"
  • Ferdinand Koestler
    Director of Photography
  • Julian Kastner
    Sound
  • Elias Maximilian
    Sound
  • Marlene Lenz
    Make Up
  • Jenny Foessl
    Make Up
  • Zizi Bohrer-Lehner
    Costume Design
  • Nadine Schratzberger
    Costume Design
  • Ariane Neumann
    Art Department
  • Vanessa Mazanik
    Art Department
  • Kindergarten
    Music
  • Alexander Peskador
    Editing
  • Bernhard Kiechl
    Compositing & Color Grading
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    Karneval der Kellner
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Genres:
    Comedy, Crime, Thriller
  • Runtime:
    11 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    March 15, 2019
  • Country of Origin:
    Austria
  • Country of Filming:
    Austria
  • Language:
    German, Italian, Russian
  • Shooting Format:
    RED
  • Aspect Ratio:
    1.85:1
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    Yes
  • 20th Landshut Short Film Festival
    Landshut
    Germany
    March 22, 2019
    World Premiere
    Official Selection
  • Independent Days International Filmfestival
    Karlsruhe
    Germany
    April 4, 2019
    Audience Award
  • Bolzano Film Festival
    Bolzano
    Italy
    April 10, 2019
    Kurzes über´n Brenner / Corti in trasferta
  • Fünf Seen Filmfestival
    Gauting
    Germany
    September 9, 2019
  • Filmz - Festival des deutschen Kinos
    Mainz
    Germany
    November 5, 2019
  • Filmfestival Radstadt
    Radstadt
    Austria
    November 8, 2019
    Austrian Premiere
  • filmzeitkaufbeuren
    Kaufbeuren
    Germany
    October 6, 2020
  • Austrian Film Festival
    Vienna
    Austria
    October 9, 2020
  • Lund International Fantastic Film Festival
    Lund
    Sweden
    October 28, 2020
    Swedish Premiere
Director Biography - Alexander Peskador

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.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

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.