Florian Teichtmeister: Last News

EXCLUSIVE: Kristen Stewart here conducts an in-depth interview with Vicky Krieps, who shines as Empress Elisabeth in Corsage, the IFC film which has put the actress and director Marie Kreutzer in Oscar contention for a film shortlisted as Austria’s pic for Best International film. Stewart is a big fan of the film, and draws out how Krieps hatched the idea and wore down the director to take the film. They also discuss the importance of telling stories from a woman’s perspective. They also touch briefly touch on the shock of discovering that Florian Teichtmeister, who plays Krieps’ husband Emperor Franz Joseph in a supporting role, was charged with possessing child pornography. The actor, who reportedly has admitted his guilt, will go on trial February 8 after being apprehended with 58,000 files of pornographic depictions of minors as young as 14.

It took the Empress Elisabeth’s strongest lady’s maid an hour every morning to lace her stays. The Emperor Franz-Joseph’s wife Sisi, as she was fondly known to the subjects of the Austro-Hungarian empire, was famous for the narrowness of her waist, which reputedly measured 19 and a half inches; the slightest weight gain was a matter of seething public interest. It looks very much as if Vicky Krieps, who brings great complexity to her portrait of the empress in Marie Kreutzer’s Un Certain Regard title Corsage, shares the imperial measurements. Let’s hope that is just a trick of the camera. So much corsetry — or corsage, the word we hear much used in the royal dressing-rooms of 19th-century Vienna — doesn’t leave much room for little things like ribs.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorMarie Kreutzer’s “Corsage,” which premieres in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival, has debuted its first clip exclusively with Variety (below). MK2 Films is handling international sales.