If one looks at the big picture, Michael, Glawogger's films add up to some uncanny kind of modern Odyssee. Regardless of  whether they are fiction or documentaries they all tell of travels to unchartered territories, geographically and/or psychologically speaking. Glawogger' cinemativ adventures confront us with idiosyncratic situations and feature strange and wonderful creatures, people fighting demons that are crowding their everyday lives - in a shipwreck dump in Pakistan or a burlesque theater in Mexico, in the mean streets of New York or a slaughterhouse in Nigeria, a brothel in Bangladesh or  a coalmine in the Ukraine. Michael Glawogger loves underdogs - almost as much as he likes stray dogs. 

The unexpected seems to always be lurking around the corner in Glawogger's films. He passionately observes, what most of us would either overlook  or choose to look  away from. He keeps exploring what's hidden in the shadows and he's never afraid of getting dirty from what he touches along the way. 

Michael's films are serious, caring and full of empathy. But he sure can laugh about the world, too. His wicked sense of humour, as displayed in his fiction films like Slugs or Contact  High, might not be everybody's cup of tea, but it certainly comes in all the colours of a psychedelic rainbow. 

The images Glawogger and his cinematographers (most notably Wolfgang Thaler) conjure up are generally breathtaking, as irritating as they are beautiful. Watching his films, one always feels like peeping through a keyhole and wonders how he was able to capture all these precious moments.     

Soon Michael Glawogger will be embarking on a new adventure. Completing his book of big documentaries: Megacities,  Workingman's Death and Whores Glory  with a final chapter. The new film will be called Untitled. But there is no doubt    about  what can be expected - Michael Glawogger will once again roam the backyards of planet earth. Here's how he himself describes the project very matter-of-factly: “I’ll travel once around the world in one year and I’ll bring home a film.” 

Martin Schweighofer, Michael Glawogger Retrospective program selector