Liebeskonzil (1982)
1h 32m
Running Time
March 12, 1982Release Date
Plot.
Oskar Panizza’s The Council of Love (1895) is a blasphemous play set in 1495, during the first recorded outbreak of syphilis, which Panizza satirically presents as the punishment from Satan for sexually active humans. As a result, Panizza was imprisoned for obscenity. Schroeter alternates scenes from the Panizza’s work with a dramatization of his trial, presenting the play as an expressionist spectacle performed by actors wearing exaggerated makeup who gesture and grimace grotesquely. The film thus forms a bridge between Schroeter’s use of tableaux in his early experiments with the political urgency of his 1980s films. On the eve of the AIDS crisis, Schroeter is presciently worried about disease as an excuse for governmental repression and the oppression of sexuality. - Harvard Film Archive
Where to Watch.
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Cast & Crew.

Antonio Salines
Teufel / Dr. Panizza

Magdalena Montezuma
Doppelzeugin

Kurt Raab
Gerichtspräsident

Renzo Rinaldi
Gottvater

Margit Carstensen
Staatsanwältin

Heinrich Giskes
Verteidiger

Agnès Nobecourt
Maria

Roberto Tesconi
Christus

Lauro Versari
Cherubim

Patrizia La Fonte
Selbstmörder-Engel

Guido Polito
2. Engel

Kristina van Eyck
Agrippina

Oskar Panizza
Original Film Writer

Peter Berling
Producer

Jörg Schmidt-Reitwein
Cinematography

Catherine Brasier-Snopko
Editor

Werner Schroeter
Director

Hanns Eckelkamp
Producer

Dietrich Kuhlbrodt
Screenplay

Roberto Lerici
Screenplay

Horst Alexander
Screenplay
Details.
Wiki.
Liebeskonzil is a 1982 film by Werner Schroeter, based on an 1894 play by Oskar Panizza. It was banned by the Austrian government in 1985, on the grounds that it insulted the Christian religion. In 1994, in the case of Otto-Preminger-Institut v. Austria, the European Court of Human Rights held by 6 votes to 3 that the banning of the film was a justifiable limitation on the freedom of expression, because the film would offend Austrian Roman Catholics.