Eclipse
Date:
January 9, 2023
Eclipse
Eclipse
by Manuel Wetscher
Eutopiafilm | Austria
Albolina Film | Italy
1st feature
Looking for
Logline
Summer, the 1990s in Tyrol: Under the supervision of his uncle, twelve-year-old Tomy spends his vacation on a farm in the mountains with his buddy Chris. Their close bond ruptures when Chris learns that Tomy’s father is in the hospital with AIDS. Tomy struggles with this loss when a solar eclipse reshapes the basic pillars of his life.
Synopsis
Summer 1999 in Tyrol: Twelve-year-old Tomy and his best friend Chris spend the vacation on a remote mountain farm. They help Tomy’s uncle with the cows, but when work is done, they playfully discover the mountains. Their intimate alliance gets destroyed, when a milk truck driver tells Chris that Tomy’s dad has the „gay disease“. Overwhelmed by the stigma of Aids, Chris withdraws.
Tomy, who still thinks his dad has pneumonia, tries everything to win him back. But after a nasty fight, Chris runs away and opens his heart to a farmer, who is competing with Tomy’s uncle. Already hurt by the breakup, Tomy witnesses how the farmer threatens to publicly expose his family. The next morning, his mom comes and apologizes for the lie, but Tomy denies to see his dad. Realizing that both have been played with, the boys watch the long awaited solar eclipse reunited. Yet seeing the sun disappear, Tomy fears the death of his dad. In the evening on the way home, a phone call shutters his life.
Director’s Profile
Manuel Wetscher (born 1986 in Schwaz, Austria) is a filmmaker and photographer whose work explores the topics of loss, identity, and the fragility of human experience. Living between Brussels and Tirol, he combines poetic realism and emotional depth in works like Richard (2024), Magma (2022) and At Night When Mice Scream (2021). In 2022, he received the Carl Mayer Screenplay Prize for ECLIPSE, his feature debut.
Company Profile
EUTOPIAFILM, founded in 2021 by Bernhard Holzhammer and Victor Kössl, evolved from WILDRUF (2008–2020), known for award-winning commercials, music videos, and documentaries such as D.U.D.A! Werner Pirchner and MK – Living Room of a Generation. The company produces author-driven fiction and documentary films focused on ecological and social topics and runs its own post-production pipeline in Tyrol. Vista Mare (premiering in Locarno in 2023) marked a successful start, and Manuel Wetscher’s feature film debut Eclipse continues the series of bold, locally rooted narratives.
Albolina Film is a production company based in South Tyrol, Italy, which focuses on socially engaged arthouse films, the support of young talents and mountain films. Founded in 2012, the company has completed around 50 service productions, releasing the first own documentary production in 2018. Our first feature film co-production, the social drama SISTERS (with Latvian Fenixfilm) was awarded as Best Debut and as Best Eastern Europe Debut by FIPRESCI at Warsaw Film Festival 2022. In 2023, our documentary co-production VISTA MARE (with Austrian Eutopiafilm) premiered at Semaine de la Critique in Locarno and was further screened and awarded at DokLeipzig, Festival dei Popoli and Viennale. The feature film 18 HOLES TO PARADISE (with Wonder Maria Films, PT) premiered in Tallinn in 2025. In 2025, Albolina Film became part of the German Studio Hamburg Production Group.