About

Adapted from Fassbinder's first produced play, Katzelmacher marks the beginning of what he called his "bourgeois films" – social critiques of the middle class. Here the focus is a group of listless Munich twentysomethings, who find themselves threatened by the arrival of a Greek labourer (played by Fassbinder himself). When reserved Jorgos moves into the neighbourhood, the initial cautious curiosity of the brooding layabouts turns to jealousy and paranoid antagonism. Rumours abound about Jorgos's political leanings and sexual potency – he is insulted as a Communist, a "Greek dog," and a katzelmacher (a Bavarian slur for a foreign immigrant, suggesting cat screwer). As the cruelty of the group comes to a violent head, Fassbinder exposes the deep-seated, persistent xenophobia in bourgeois German society. Shot in only nine days and released just four months after his first feature, Katzelmacher is an experimental, provocative study of alienation and intolerance.

R18+ | High level sex scenes

R18+