alr

I Was at Home, But
(Ich war zuhause, aber)

Special Preview Screening
Director in Person
$12 Special Event Tickets
Directed by Angela Schanelec.
With Thorbjörn Björnsson, Esther Buss, Martin Clausen.
Germany/Serbia , 2019, DCP, color, 105 min.
German with English subtitles.
DCP source: Cinema Guild

What is probably Angela Schanelec’s most spiritual film acknowledges a formal continuity with The Dreamed Path, which was conceived at the same time. A thirteen-year-old boy reappears, almost like a ghost, after having given no word of his whereabouts for some time. We understand that he must have found refuge in the woods because of the traces of mud on his clothes, although the reasons behind his absence are unclear. The story is constructed elliptically, manifesting the same feeling of absence reflected in the narrative itself, a mirroring effect that is characteristic of Schanelec’s poetics. In her cinema, environments, characters and their reactions are drawn out via sets of reciprocal evocations, following one another like chain reaction. This is a film populated by elements that are familiar to its author as well as to us, her audience, that are profoundly original and unique nonetheless, embracing a continuity with her work and her universe. A simple beauty spreads out from the title, itself forging a link to an Ozu film from the 1930s, to every space in the frame. – Eva Sangiorgi

I Was at Home, But (Ich war zuhause, aber) introduction and discussion with Haden Guest and Angela Schanelec. ©Harvard Film Archive

Part of film series

Read more

Find Without Seeking. The Films of Angela Schanelec

Current and upcoming film series

Read more

Jean-Pierre Bekolo, 2024 McMillan-Stewart Fellow

Read more

The Practice (and Other Works) By Martín Rejtman

Read more

Chronicles of Changing Times. The Cinema of Edward Yang

Read more
Gene Hackman crouched beside a toilet with audio equipment

From the HFA Collection...

Read more

Being In a Place. Rediscovering Margaret Tait