This startling, discomfiting and weirdly gripping character study from Ulrich Seidl (Dog Days, the Paradise trilogy) follows a washed-up pop star as he tries to paper over the gaping cracks in his personal and professional lives.

Richie Bravo (Michael Thomas) was once a huge celebrity in his native Austria. But those days are a distant memory, and the ageing crooner – leonine hair, deafening jewellery, ghastly wardrobe – now sings for busloads of pensionable tourists in an out-of-season Italian resort, supplementing his income by charging his fans for sexual favours. Bad turns to worse when Tessa (Tessa Göttlicher), the daughter he neglected as a child, shows up demanding money that Richie doesn’t have – yet. Thomas is a perfectly hideous presence in another typically uncompromising feature from the master of cinematic discomfort.