Austrian writer-director Michael Haneke once cited Roberto Rossellini’s “Germany Year Zero” (1948), shot in postwar Berlin, as a key influence on his cinematic thinking.

The devastating story of a young boy’s corruption in the midst of literal and spiritual rubble posed a question: How did it come to this?

Haneke’s latest film and Palm d’Or-winning period drama (2009, 145mins) tries to answer that question by way of historical prologue. Set a generation earlier in 1913, it relays a series of mysterious cruelties perpetrated by unknown parties in a German village. Watching the daisy chain of events is akin to auditing a seminar on incipient fascism…

Where: Cambodian German Cultural Center, #37 Sothearos Blvd. opposite of Buildbright / Phnom Penh centre
When: Tuesday Jul. 6, 19:00