In “PARADISE: FAITH” Ulrich Seidl explores what it means to carry the cross. For Anna Maria, a single woman in her 50s, paradise lies with Jesus. She devotes her summer vacation to doing missionary work, so that Austria may be brought back to the path of virtue. On her daily pilgrimage through Vienna, she goes from door to door, carrying a foot-high statue of the Virgin Mary. One day, when after years of absence, her husband, an Egyptian Muslim confined to a wheelchair, comes home, her life goes off its rails. Hymns and prayers are now joined by fighting. “PARADISE: FAITH” recounts the stations of the cross of a marriage and the longing for love.

The film is the second part of Ulrich Seidl's PARADISE Trilogy. “PARADISE: LOVE”, the first part, is about Anna Maria's sister Teresa, whose paradise lies with more earthly love – with beach boys in Kenya.