Falco: Into the light

Feature Documentary

Overview

High up on a list of famous Austrians, alongside Schwarzenegger, Kafka and Freud sits Johann "Hans" Hölzel, better known as the Viennese enfant terrible - Falco. For millions of Austrians and Germans, he is a cult icon and perhaps the biggest musical star to emerge from Austria since Herr Mozart himself.

Falco was the first Austrian to have number one hits in the UK, Japan and the USA and still the only musician to have a US number 1 hit in the German language. A controversial figure throughout his life, personally and artistically, he was also a talented singer, a gifted songwriter, a rapper, a gentleman, a womanizer and a man of wealth and taste.

Like Schubert he burned brightly and died young after a short, hedonistic life that was frequently riddled with crippling self-doubt.

Beethoven, Shubert and Falco...all three lie in the same cemetery.

Seventeen years after his first international breakthrough, on February 6, 1998 at the age of 40, Falco was killed in a car crash in the Dominican Republic ... In the cassette player was a copy of his posthumously-released album Out of the Dark (Into the Light) playing a song containing the line “Must I die then, in order to live?”

Was his death premeditated, a genuine accident or an avoidable tragedy? Speculation persists till this day.

INTO THE LIGHT is a feature documentary journeying into the heart of a man who seemingly had the world at his fingertips, but ultimately lost his grip on a truly global success. Plagued by addiction, insecurity and personal demons, the film delves into the psyche of a man hiding behind a very public persona until his tragic and untimely death.