Top 150 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2019: #14. I Was At Home, But (Ich war zuhause, aber) – Angela Schanelec

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

German art-house auteur Angela Schanelec will be set to unveil her ninth feature, the intriguingly titled, I Was At Home, But (an homage to the Yasujiro Ozu’s 1932 title I Was Born, But…). Schanelec remains frustratingly underappreciated outside of Europe, as many of her works often evoke trailblazing predecessors such as Ackerman, Antononioni, and Bresson, all whom she regularly cites as inspiration. Her films often involve long, static shots, and are comprised of narratives distilled to the basest of dramatic function. Schanelec broke a six year hiatus in 2016, following 2010’s Orly with her Locarno competing The Dreamed Path (between these, she contributed to the 2014 omnibus Bridges of Sarajevo). Previously, both 1998’s Places in Cities and 2004’s Marseille premiered in Un Certain Regard at Cannes. Her latest features the impressive Franz Rogowski (who recently headlined films from Michael Haneke and Christian Petzold), Ursula Renneke, and one of Schanelec’s usual collaboraters, Maren Eggert. Co-funded by Film Center Serbia, the feature is lensed by DP Ivan Markovic (All the Cities of the North, 2016) and produced by Vladimir Vidic (The Load, 2018) and Natasa Damjanovic (All the Cities of the North, 2016).

Gist: Scripted by Schanelec, I Was At Home, But deals with a professor (Eggert), whose 13-year-old son vanishes mysterious for a week before reappearing under equally enigmatic circumstances. A drama on intergenerational conflict, a staging of Hamlet at the school also serves as an elemental backdrop.

Release Date/Prediction: Schanelec shot I Was At Home, But in Berlin in Autumn, 2017, and had confirmed she had completed editing last July. She will be competing in the 2019 Berlin International Film Festival with I Was At Home, But…