Those Loved by God

From such diverse settings as informal inns, cozy living rooms, and an amusement park merry-go-round Johannes Holzhausen´s documentary gives us an engaging an sympathetic look at the relationship between two modest lives living on the fringe of society.

Those loved by God is an arrangement of recollections of the would-be entertainer Albert Fortelka and the short stories of his companion Kathi. An unlikely pair, a partnership in which each needs the other to save himself. While Fortelka, the former hobo and "born comedian who was thrust into destiny" carefully orchestrates the details and recollections of his life, we also get the childlike remembrances of Kathi. She, who never grew up, tells us the daily and ordinary nightmares of life: her mother who sent her off to "the crazy house", the step father, the brutal lover who beat her unconscious and then tattooed his name on her arm. Looking back from a happy life to a darker and unhappy past. And nothing to smile about. (Robert Weixlbaumer)