Main Slate
The Loneliest Man in Town
Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel
North American Premiere
Vienna meets the Mississippi Delta in Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel’s delightful and poignant portrait of Austria’s preeminent blues musician, Al Cook, who discovers that he must evacuate his beloved apartment, set for demolition.
- Runtime
- 86 min
- Country
- Austria
- Language
- German
- Year
- 2026
- More information
- Official film page
Screenings
Vienna meets the Mississippi Delta in this delightful and poignant portrait of Austria’s preeminent American blues musician Al Cook (né Alois Koch), who comes to stand in for a vanishing way of life. Playing a fictionalized version of himself, Al discovers that he must evacuate his beloved apartment, which is being demolished by real estate developers. Filled with objects—VHS tapes, record albums, newspaper clippings—that connect him to his past and true self, his home is a fragile sanctuary of tactile memories. Equally influenced by Elvis Presley and Robert Johnson, Al Cook was part of the rockabilly revival in his country in the 1980s and proved influential for subsequent generations of Austrian musicians. Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel’s evocative and gently soulful film turns him into a charismatic camera subject, as well as a hero of his own world—one we feel privileged to enter. The film won the Giuseppe Becce Award and a Special Mention for the Prize of the Guild of German Arthouse Cinemas at the 2026 Berlin International Film Festival.
Travel support generously provided by the Austrian Cultural Forum New York.
Vienna meets the Mississippi Delta in this delightful and poignant portrait of Austria’s preeminent American blues musician Al Cook (né Alois Koch), who comes to stand in for a vanishing way of life. Playing a fictionalized version of himself, Al discovers that he must evacuate his beloved apartment, which is being demolished by real estate developers. Filled with objects—VHS tapes, record albums, newspaper clippings—that connect him to his past and true self, his home is a fragile sanctuary of tactile memories. Equally influenced by Elvis Presley and Robert Johnson, Al Cook was part of the rockabilly revival in his country in the 1980s and proved influential for subsequent generations of Austrian musicians. Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel’s evocative and gently soulful film turns him into a charismatic camera subject, as well as a hero of his own world—one we feel privileged to enter. The film won the Giuseppe Becce Award and a Special Mention for the Prize of the Guild of German Arthouse Cinemas at the 2026 Berlin International Film Festival.
Travel support generously provided by the Austrian Cultural Forum New York.