Angela Schanelec's I Was at Home, But… (2019) begins with thirteen-year-old Phillip casually returning home to his widowed mother Astrid, following a prolonged absence during which he camped out alone in the woods. What follows is a digressive, puzzle-box narrative, sometimes oneiric and irreal, sometimes played as absurd comedy, much of it circulating around intimations of family trauma and its legacies.

Active as a director since the early 90s, grouped with what is often called the Berlin School, Schanelec's latest was seen by many as a major breakthrough when it played the Berlin International Film Festival earlier this year. If it is a somewhat inscrutable film, it is so by design, its little mysteries hinting at much greater ones. Schanelec demonstrates a mastery of form that often draws comparisons to Alfred Hitchcock and Robert Bresson. Her sensibility is purely cinematographic; she esteems her chosen medium because, in her words, it “gives you a chance to spend some time with images, bodies and situations.” 

 -Written by Jason Wierzba

Community Partner: Association for German Education in Calgary