Antonin Svoboda'sdirectorial debut You Bet Your Life(Spiele Leben) has been submittedas Austria's submission for the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 2007Oscars.
Starring Georg Friedrichand Brigitte Minichmayr, You Bet Your Life is the story of a gambler who quite literally begins to gamble his lifeaway and was shown at last year's Toronto, San Sebastian and Viennale festivalsas well as this year's Rotterdam International Film Festival. Bavaria FilmInternational is handling international sales.
The film was produced bythe Vienna-based production house coop99, which Svoboda founded with filmmakersBarbara Albert and Jessica Hausner and DoP Martin Gschlacht, with Swissco-producer Triluna Film.
coop99 was also the leadproducer on Jasmila Zbanic's Golden Bear-winning mother-daughter drama Grbavica which has been submitted for the Academy Award'sForeign Language Film category by Bosnia and Herzegovina.
This year, the Austriansare evidently playing safe after their submission last year - Michael Haneke's Hidden (Cache)- was rejected by the Academy for being in the French language rather than thedirector's mother tongue of German.
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