Page - 67 - in Siting Futurity - The “Feel Good” Tactical Radicalism of Contemporary Culture in and around Vienna

67 conVerting Kebab and currency into community Disko’s heir is the film’s protagonist, Sammy, a local tough played by Michael Steinocher who suddenly finds himself in possession of Disko’s little black book, whose intricate book- keeping system, much of which is in Cyrillic as Disko was from an unspecified part of the former Yugoslavia, he has difficulty deciphering. He gets help in this task both from his grandfa- ther, a retired accountant, played by Lukas Resitarits, whom he helps out with grocery deliveries and who tutors him in the basics of finance capitalization, and from the German business student, Valerie, played by Cornelia Gröschel, whose research on the “Schwarzmarkt des europäischen Subproletariat” [“black market of the European subproletariat”] has taken her to the Brunnenmarkt, where she is immediately hassled by local youth and Sammy comes to her rescue. After the local loan shark, Frau Jahn, played by Susi Stach who was nominated for the 2016 Aus- trian Film Prize’s best supporting actress for the role, agrees to give her an unpaid internship, Valerie and Sammy again cross paths and become romantically involved. Together, they figure out that Disko’s ledger corresponds with Frau Jahn’s customers, meaning that Disko had been laundering his ill-gotten gains by covering the neighborhood’s debts. Disko’s death had brought about an imbalance in the system, and when locals could no longer meet their debt payments, it also meant extra work for Frau Jahn’s goons. Putting the education he has received from his grandfather to good use, Sammy comes to the neighbor- hood’s rescue with an alternative currency called “Kommu- nisten,” or red Schillings.10 The circulation of “Kommunisten” helps the locals not only get their businesses back on their feet but also pay their debts, which threatens Frau Jahn’s business as 10 The Schilling was Austria’s currency between 1925 and 1938 and from the end of World War II until the Euro was introduced in 1999. While Schil- lings have been officially out of circulation since 2002, billions still exist: “Altbestände von rund sieben Milliarden Schilling (507 Millionen Euro) horten die Österreicher noch oder liegen verborgen in Verstecken” [Schil- ling in the amount of about seven billion (507 million Euro) remain either hoarded by Austrians or otherwise hidden] (“Kik akzeptiert wieder den Schilling als Zahlungsmittel”).