Vacation from today in yesterday
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In 2012, David Schalko (“Kafka”) created the Austrian provincial series “Braunschlag”, which is considered an influential work of Austrian humor. 14 years later, the ensemble including Nicholas Ofczarek, Robert Palfrader and many other stars returns with the HBO Max series “Braunschlag 1986”.
When the fictitious Waldviertel community of Braunschlag made its first appearance on ORF 1 in autumn 2012, hardly anyone expected what happened next: up to 36 percent market share in Austria, one million viewers on Tuesdays at prime time – the most watched self-produced ORF series in two decades! Of all things, for a work that its creator David Schalko (“Kafka”) simply made “just the way he liked it”. What no one would have expected: 14 years later the whole thing is being continued. From Thursday, July 16th, there will be an encore of the provincial farce with stars like Nicholas Ofczarek, Robert Palfrader and Nina Proll.
Five 45-minute long episodes of “Braunschlag 1986” appear on HBO Max every week. The late second season manages to resurrect almost all of the characters in the story at the time about an invented Marian miracle for city marketing purposes in an oppressive province. This time, instead of the religious lie, there is a bizarre tourist offer: Braunschlag is supposed to be transported back to the reality of life in 1986. So to speak, as a holiday destination from today in yesterday.
To understand the “Braunschlag” phenomenon, you should know the old series, even if it is not absolutely necessary for the sequel: “Braunschlag” in 2012 was as Austrian as it was universal. Mayor Gerri Tschach (Palfrader) and his friend, the disco operator Richard Pfeisinger (Ofczarek), staged a fake apparition of the Virgin Mary in their bankrupt community. Crowds of pilgrims flocked, the money flowed – until the Vatican, the state government, family chaos and an illegal nuclear waste storage facility caused things to get out of hand.
Black humor, deep melancholy and a disrespectful approach to the church, corruption and Austrian cosiness made “Braunschlag” a cult piece that literary scholars read as a political allegory – a “world Lower Austria” in the sense of Robert Musil.
David Schalko’s Austrian Absurdistan
International festival awards followed, US remake attempts failed, and Schalko swore for years that the story had been told. Nevertheless, during the summer of 2025, the film shuttered again in the Waldviertel, the northwestern part of the Austrian state of Lower Austria. “Braunschlag 1986”, actually a two-part feature length film that was shown on ORF in March 2026, brings together almost the entire original ensemble. In addition to the two main actors, Raimund Wallisch, Nina Proll, Maria Hofstätter, Simon Schwarz, Stefanie Reinsperger, Manuel Rubey and Nora Waldstätten will do the honors.
And that’s what it’s all about: Mayor Tschach now rules by decree that from now on it will be 1986 in Braunschlag. Including digital detox, retro lifestyle and without modern role models for men and women. Nostalgia as a local policy and tourist marketing concept. It sounds absurd. It sounds like Schalko and is certainly not humorous for every series fan.
You have to like Schalko’s Austrian absurdism of provincial bullshit, pompous fatties and desperate life plans in order to find a home in this scenically down-to-earth and yet narratively detached world of stories. The reception of the old series was similar in Germany, where “Braunschlag” was only shown on specialty channels such as RTL Crime or Einsfestival – plus Bayerischer Rundfunk – and later on streaming services. On the other hand, there are quite a few Germans who bought a DVD and describe Schalko’s bitter provincial farce as one of the best that German-language humor has achieved in the last two decades. (This article was created in cooperation with teleschau.)