Peter Krobath: It’s interesting that The Whore’s Son is set in the red-light milieu without being a milieu film as such ...

Michael Sturminger: It’s set somewhere on the periphery of that milieu, it creeps up on the red-light milieu from behind as it were. For example, the brothel is only shown when it’s being cleaned and never when it’s in operation. You see the mother getting dressed up and made up for her job, especially at the beginning, when she’s still working under adverse conditions, how she goes off to work and comes back home. It’s not prostitution itself that’s the subject of this film but life with prostitution.

Does The Whore’s Son have to be set in Austria, or could this story take place anywhere?

Michael Sturminger: Austria’s only important to the extent that it’s a foreign country for the protagonists who are living there. But in principle the story could also be set among the Portuguese community in Belgium or the Puertoricans in New York. It’s about people who migrate from a weak economic region to a stronger one and have to struggle along as best they can, each in his or her own way.