Brandstätter's film is a plea for justice instead of revenge and for tolerance towards those who think differently, and beyond that it is immensely exciting from the first to the last minute.
Excerpt from the jury statement, VIENNA FILM PRIZE 2007
Brandstätter's film makes it clear that justice is a variable, and that it can only benefit from cultural communication.
Dominik Kamalzadeh, DER STANDARD
With her clever editing, Brandstätter scrapes the crucial question out of the material: does the „democratization“ of a region have to take place via the installation of a UN court dictated from above, when there is an alternative tradition of justice?
DIE PRESSE
Susanne Brandstätter documents the trial with austerity; it's surprising how a laborious legal court case, shot with extremely reduced camera movement, can be brought to the screen with so much suspense.
Otto Friedrich, DIE FÜRCHE
A film to watch a second time and that can also teach you something about those countries that you want to teach something to.
KURIER
A dilemma for Fenz, but fortunate for Brandstätter, whose film raises a whole series of heavyweight questions with light-footed ease.
PROFIL
This extraordinary film is also a good lesson for Iraq and for all the countries in the world, where attempts to enforce democracy with bayonets are unsuccessful.
Tullio Kezich, CORRIERE DELLA SERA
Rule of Law is an insightful, exciting contribution to a topic that affects all of us far more than may be apparent at first glance.
SKIP KINOMAGAZIN
Created under difficult conditions, the highly discerning documentary by US-Austrian Brandstätter reveals new perspectives for understanding systems that are foreign to us. Important and exciting at the same time.
WIENER ZEITUNG
Basically, the camera remains the only uninvolved participant in this increasingly absurd trial, and Brandstätter is smart enough as a filmmaker to recede to such an extent that this fact becomes apparent. In this way, at least in the film, the trial against the Albanian stone throwers also turns into a trial about justice itself.
RAY KINOMAGAZIN
The documentary, which due to the authenticity of its protagonists' dialogues has at times almost the character of a fiction film, is structured in two story lines: the trial against the Kosovo Albanians, some of whom remain unreasonable up until the verdict is pronounced, and the journeys that Fenz makes with the local interpreter Osman Kuci to the villages of the province under UN administration.
APA
Her findings are exciting and provocative for western jurisdiction.
FALTER
Brandstätter's unusual documentary follows the judge as she commutes between two parallel universes.
CITY
Impressive.
HEUTE
Last but not least, the energetic UN judge Claudia Fenz from Vienna, who presides over the trial but also visits rural village judges, makes the one and a half hours an exciting thing.
Frido Hütter, KLEINE ZEITUNG
A subtle film, because you see that not only occupiers can impose their law on a country.
Birgit Flos
In the coming days, it will not be easy to find an equally clever equivalent to the documentary „Rule of Law“ by Susanne Brandstätter. A wonderful film.
Martina Lunzer Brem, DIAGONALE FILM FESTIVAL
Excerpt from the jury statement, VIENNA FILM PRIZE 2007
Brandstätter's film makes it clear that justice is a variable, and that it can only benefit from cultural communication.
Dominik Kamalzadeh, DER STANDARD
With her clever editing, Brandstätter scrapes the crucial question out of the material: does the „democratization“ of a region have to take place via the installation of a UN court dictated from above, when there is an alternative tradition of justice?
DIE PRESSE
Susanne Brandstätter documents the trial with austerity; it's surprising how a laborious legal court case, shot with extremely reduced camera movement, can be brought to the screen with so much suspense.
Otto Friedrich, DIE FÜRCHE
A film to watch a second time and that can also teach you something about those countries that you want to teach something to.
KURIER
A dilemma for Fenz, but fortunate for Brandstätter, whose film raises a whole series of heavyweight questions with light-footed ease.
PROFIL
This extraordinary film is also a good lesson for Iraq and for all the countries in the world, where attempts to enforce democracy with bayonets are unsuccessful.
Tullio Kezich, CORRIERE DELLA SERA
Rule of Law is an insightful, exciting contribution to a topic that affects all of us far more than may be apparent at first glance.
SKIP KINOMAGAZIN
Created under difficult conditions, the highly discerning documentary by US-Austrian Brandstätter reveals new perspectives for understanding systems that are foreign to us. Important and exciting at the same time.
WIENER ZEITUNG
Basically, the camera remains the only uninvolved participant in this increasingly absurd trial, and Brandstätter is smart enough as a filmmaker to recede to such an extent that this fact becomes apparent. In this way, at least in the film, the trial against the Albanian stone throwers also turns into a trial about justice itself.
RAY KINOMAGAZIN
The documentary, which due to the authenticity of its protagonists' dialogues has at times almost the character of a fiction film, is structured in two story lines: the trial against the Kosovo Albanians, some of whom remain unreasonable up until the verdict is pronounced, and the journeys that Fenz makes with the local interpreter Osman Kuci to the villages of the province under UN administration.
APA
Her findings are exciting and provocative for western jurisdiction.
FALTER
Brandstätter's unusual documentary follows the judge as she commutes between two parallel universes.
CITY
Impressive.
HEUTE
Last but not least, the energetic UN judge Claudia Fenz from Vienna, who presides over the trial but also visits rural village judges, makes the one and a half hours an exciting thing.
Frido Hütter, KLEINE ZEITUNG
A subtle film, because you see that not only occupiers can impose their law on a country.
Birgit Flos
In the coming days, it will not be easy to find an equally clever equivalent to the documentary „Rule of Law“ by Susanne Brandstätter. A wonderful film.
Martina Lunzer Brem, DIAGONALE FILM FESTIVAL