Night of a 1000 Hours


Night of a 1000 Hours is a 2016 Austrian–Luxembourgish–Dutch drama film written and directed by Virgil Widrich. Blending elements of mystery, family saga and the supernatural, the film premiered at the Busan International Film Festival in October 2016, where it won the Flash Forward Audience Award. It was later released theatrically in Austria and screened at more than 50 international festivals.

Plot

Members of the Ullich family gather at their ancestral residence in Vienna to reorganize the family business. During a single, increasingly uncanny night, deceased ancestors start to reappear and long-buried secrets surface. Philip Ullich, the heir apparent, falls in love with Renate — later revealed to be an ancestor — collapsing boundaries between past and present and forcing a reckoning with guilt, inheritance and desire.

Production

Widrich began writing in 2007 under the working title Die Revolution. Development and financing were taken on by Amour Fou in 2008; dramaturgical input came from Jean-Claude Carrière and Luise Gough.
Principal photography took place 15 January–28 May 2015 in Vienna, at Studio Filmland Kehlen, and at locations in Italy. Christian Berger served as cinematographer; Pia Dumont edited; production design was by Christina Schaffer; costumes by Alette Kraan; the score was composed by Siegfried Friedrich. Widrich devised a hybrid visual approach combining built sets with digitally projected backdrops to create shifting spatial illusions. Post-production lasted about one year. Delivery was completed on 25 May 2016; international sales and distribution were handled by Picture Tree International.

Release

The film's world premiere was on 10 October 2016 at the Busan International Film Festival in South Korea, where it received the **Flash Forward Audience Award**.
Subsequent festival screenings included the Warsaw Film Festival and the Chicago International Film Festival, among many others.
The Austrian premiere took place on 15 November 2016 at the Gartenbaukino in Vienna, followed by theatrical release on 18 November 2016. On 23 January 2017 the film opened the 38th Filmfestival Max Ophüls Preis in Saarbrücken. The TV premiere aired on ORF 2 on 28 November 2018.

Awards

Reception

English-language coverage highlighted the film's visual concept and time-collapsing family narrative.
  • “A living depiction of a family history … moving fluidly between present and past.” — *Austrian Films*.
  • Cineuropa described it as “a darkly humorous, visually seductive reflection on Europe’s buried memory.”
Additional profiles appear on Golden Girls Filmproduktion,
Letterboxd,
and Amour Fou Film’s archive.

Cast