In the final part of my interview with Johannes Grenzfurthner, we discuss his new film, Solvent, in more depth.

B & S About Movies: What else shaped Solvent from your own life?

Johannes Grenzfurthner: There are moments in the film that are direct quotes or anecdotes from my life. For example, the story about my grandmother is true. I went to see E.T. with her, and she was so overwhelmed.

(Editor’s note: In the film, the character Bartholdi recalls seeing E.T. with his grandmother. Flabbergasted by the movie, she tries to make sense of it, saying: “Spielberg. Hmmm. A Jew.”)

She wasn’t anti-Semitic in the way we typically think of it—she hated Hitler, often cursed him because her brother died in the war, and she never forgave him for that. But she was born in 1923 and grew up in an era saturated with Nazi propaganda. Like most kids at the time, she was part of the Nazi youth organizations—it was mandatory. While she never openly spoke badly about Jewish people or subscribed to Nazi ideology, there was still a residue of that indoctrination in her thinking. When we saw E.T. back in 1982, she was genuinely fascinated but completely baffled. It was probably the first science fiction movie she’d ever seen in a cinema. She had grown up on films from the ’40s and ’50s that aired on Austrian television—none of them were anything like E.T., she tried to make sense of it, and her explanation was, “Spielberg… he’s Jewish. Maybe that’s why it’s so strange.”

It’s such a weird anecdote, but I felt it perfectly captured the ambivalence of that generation’s thinking. Even when they weren’t openly hateful, there was still this ingrained framework of “otherness” and attempts to rationalize anything unfamiliar through those old, biased lenses.

I included it in the film because it reflects something larger: the lingering traces of ideology, the subtle ways it persists. Especially now—with Austria’s far-right gaining traction again, and looking at things like Trump’s election—it feels like history is echoing back to us. We’re literally in the 2020s, but it feels disturbingly like the 1920s all over again.

B&S: My dad was an art teacher. Kids in class would make pottery of swastikas. They didn’t know what it meant they were being rebellious. And my father would make a point to break every single one of them. He told me you can’t ever let that happen again.

He had a stroke and one of the hardest things to deal with was his memory loss, explaining where America was heading every day. He learned about January 6th and the riots months after it happened; it broke his dementia for a bit. I had to explain to him several times how we got here. And I always thought, “What was it like to be in Nazi Germany as things slowly progressed?” I worry that I know now.

With your different background and learning about it in school, what do you think? How could we be doing this all over again?

Johannes: There are so many ways to look at it, but I think, fundamentally, it always comes down to economics. People are afraid. They can’t afford things. And fear—especially economic fear—makes them vulnerable to manipulation.

I’ve heard people mocking voters, saying things like, “Oh, you’re choosing your candidate because of the price of eggs?” But for some people, the price of eggs is survival. That kind of mockery is incredibly classist. If you’re struggling to put food on the table, fascism feels like an abstract concept—it’s not what you’re thinking about when you’re hungry or when your family’s future is uncertain.

In German, we have a saying: “First you think about what you’re eating, then you think about morality.” And it rings true. For many people, politics boils down to economics. Take rural areas, or places devastated by mill closures or other industries disappearing. When people are desperate, they’ll vote for whoever promises relief, no matter the long-term consequences.

It was the same in the 1920s. The economy was in shambles, and people were suffering. They voted for the person who promised them bread, not realizing that meant voting for the person who would later send them off to war. That next step—what fascism truly entails—is something most people don’t think about when their immediate needs are so overwhelming.

That’s why, at my core, I’m such a neo-Marxist. If you don’t take the economic realities of people seriously, you’ve already lost the fight. The root of so much political instability, and even fascism, is tied to economics. Addressing that fear is the only way to truly counteract it.

B&S: As you said, I live in the Rust Belt, and we’ve barely recovered from the 1980s steel mill closures. But if somebody with power says I’m going to bring steel and coal back, you will vote for that if that’s your dream. But if you know the industry, you know that the heyday of steel and coal in Western Pennsylvania can’t come back. It’s a different world. So you set up people to vote for you because of a promise you can’t deliver, and when these disenfranchised people are energized and disenfranchised again, what happens?

Johannes: Yes! I even have a Pittsburgh story about Solvent. So, I came across this review on Letterboxd from a user called Porridge MD. It stuck with me because of how the movie resonated with him and what he decided to do afterward. He starts by describing this little dive bar where he likes to hang out—classic working-class vibe. You shoot some pool, have a drink, chat with the regulars. Among the crowd, there’s this one guy, a skinhead type with Nordic runes tattooed on his arm. And, you know, it’s clear what kind of ideology he subscribes to. Most of the time, this guy talks about football or whatever, but every so often, he starts spouting Holocaust denial nonsense—stuff like “the gas chambers never existed.” Porridge MD said he usually ignored the guy because… well, America, right? Bars like that sometimes let people like him stick around. But after watching Solvent, something changed. The next time he saw the guy, he walked right up to him and said, “The biggest traitor is the Holocaust denier. He insults the cunning of the German people.” That’s a quote by the Nazi character in my film. And apparently, the guy’s face just crumpled. Like he’d been hit by a bazooka. Porridge MD gave the film five stars, saying, “Cheers to you!” That’s the kind of thing that gives you goosebumps as a filmmaker. The idea that something you created can spark that kind of subversive reaction in someone—that’s just lovely.

B&S: Back to movies, we’re not getting the end of the world we wanted.

Johannes: A few years ago, I made a documentary called Traceroute. You can find it on Vimeo-On-Demand. It’s essentially a political nerd road trip—I traveled from the West Coast to the East Coast of the U.S., visiting locations and meeting people who influenced me as a nerd. One of the stops was the Monroeville Mall in Pittsburgh, famous because of Dawn of the Dead.

I even did an interview with a researcher in the parking lot there until security kicked us out. That was an experience. (laughs)

In the film, I talked about this idea that people are obsessed with end-of-the-world scenarios. Zombies, nukes, alien invasions—we love these big, dramatic collapses. But the truth is, the world doesn’t really end. It just keeps getting worse, incrementally, bit by bit. We’re like the proverbial frog in the pot, with the water heating up slowly.

I think people are waiting for this defining moment, this boom, where everything collapses in one go. But that’s not how it works. Instead, we’re already living through constant, rolling apocalypses. Look at 9/11. Symbolically, for many Americans, that was the end-of-the-world moment. It doesn’t get more hardcore than that, at least in a symbolic sense.

What’s the next step? A city being nuked? Sure, that’s possible. But honestly, the way things unfold is rarely as cinematic as we’d like to imagine. It’s more subtle, more pervasive. The real apocalypse is just this endless decline—the systems we rely on slowly breaking down, society eroding, while we all hope for a clear moment of resolution that will never come.

B&S: What movies influenced your nerd life?

Johannes: After making Masking Threshold, I was invited by Letterboxd to create a list of films that influenced me. I welcomed the challenge. I am a nerd for “lists.” But when I sat down, it was pretty overwhelming. Every movie I’ve ever watched has shaped how I view film and the world. Some films are, for various reasons, enormously present in my memory. Poltergeist, for example, because I first saw it when I was 9, alone on late-night television in our dark living room while my parents and friends had a BBQ outside. I felt I was dying of fear throughout the entire experience. Or RoboCop, because as a 12-year-old nerd in a shabby theater in my Austrian hometown, it kindled my interest in politics, technology and toxic waste that melts your face off. I didn’t include those films (and moments) in my compilation because they feel too big and too dominating. Instead, I chose films that, for whatever biochemical reason, my brain goes back to when it is wandering, digesting and scheming.

(Editor’s note: Check out Johannes’ list here).

Thanks to Johannes for spending so much time discussing his films with me. I can’t wait to see what he makes next. Please take the time to experience his work; it’s quite amazing.

You can watch the film Masking Threshold on Tubi.

Razzennest is available on Fandango and Plex for free in the U.S.

Solvent is currently playing festivals.

You can learn more about Johannes and his work at monochrom.