THE LIFE OF SEAN DELEAR
MQ Hof 8
MQ Arena21
Free Entry
AT 2024 | D: Markus Zizenbacher | Documentary | 82min. | OV with English Subtitles
With: Sean DeLear, Ann Magnuson, Scott Ewalt, Steve McDonald, Jeppe Laursen, Rick Owens, Michelle Lamy, Ali Janka u.a.
Director: Markus Zizenbacher
Camera: Markus Zizenbacher, Aleksey Lapin, Kurdwin Ayub
Music: Mike Watt
Sound: Markus Zizenbacher, Claudia Joldes, Rafael Haider
Editing: Markus Zizenbacher, Sebastian Schreiner
Sound Design: Eli Frauscher
A scene figure in L.A., Sean DeLear was part of the post-punk and power pop artists of the bustling Silver Lake scene in the 1980s and 1990s. Before that, DeLear dreamed of the wide world and creative adventures in diaries from his teenage years. In the end, DeLear did not find the wide world in the “white as f***” avant-garde art scene in Vienna.
VHS recordings show a figure full of lust, wit, conjured up chaos and the harsh confrontations with exclusion, which form a declaration of love in the montage: to the 1990s DIY aesthetic, through intimacy, the shimmering energy of past subcultures and through Sean DeLear himself.
THE LIFE OF SEAN DELEAR tells DeLear's story not as a one-dimensional biography, but as a multi-layered homage, reflection and tracing of a life as a total work of art. The expressions of artist and filmmaker interact with each other, just like their friendship in real life.
Markus Zizenbacher (born 1986), who grew up in Vienna, is an Austrian screenwriter, caster and director. Zizenbacher studied at the Vienna Film Academy and made his film debut in 2016 with the short film RYTHMUS 59, followed by other short films. He released his first feature-length film, SEAN DELEAR, in 2024, which won the Max Ophüls Prize for Best Documentary in 2025.