“It’s a movie about the blues, and the blues is always about losing”
by Ana Stanic
BERLINALE 2026: The directing duo spoke about working with a long-time friend, shaping a fiction film rooted in real life and capturing loneliness
We sat with Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel to talk about The Loneliest Man In Town [+see also:
film review
interview: Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel
film profile], their Berlinale Competition film about Viennese blues musician Al Cook, a man living among memories as the world around him quietly disappears. Surrounded by records, VHS tapes and objects that hold entire lifetimes, Al faces not only the loss of his wife but also the demolition of his home and, with it, a vanishing old Vienna. Covi and Frimmel spoke about working with a long-time friend, about shaping a fiction film rooted in real life, and about capturing loneliness through still images, light and silence rather than dialogue. Shot on 16mm, the film balances tenderness and dry humour, becoming a portrait of lived passion, stubborn authenticity and the fragile spaces that keep memory alive.
