Trailer Debuts For Angela Schanelec’s I Was At Home, But…

Cinema Guild has dropped a brand new trailer for beloved German filmmaker Angela Schanelec’s latest masterpiece, I Was At Home, But…, one of 2019’s most talked about festival darlings and what is sure to be a major player for the very same “Best Of [Insert Year]” lists that every critic makes at the end of the year.

Here’s the synopsis, from the distributor:

I Was at Home, But… tells the story of Astrid (Maren Eggert), a forty-something mother of two,
struggling to regain her balance in the wake of her husband’s death. Her adolescent son Phillip
(Jakob Lassalle) disappeared for a week and now that he has returned, he faces disciplinary
action at school and his toe requires amputation. As new questions confront Astrid from every
angle, even simple activities like buying a bicycle or engaging with a work of art, are fraught
with unexpected challenges.

In her signature elliptical style and with a gentle sense of humor, Schanelec weaves together
these narrative strands and more—a school production of Hamlet, a pair of teachers deciding
whether to start a family, a donkey and a dog who share a home—to create an indelible picture
of a small community grappling with fundamental questions of existence.

I had the pleasure of seeing the film last fall, and was absolutely floored by it. A master of the craft, Schanelec’s latest (the filmmaker’s eighth feature) is an existentialist masterpiece, a formally frigid rumination on art and motherhood that’s simply impossible to truly compare. Obviously drawing direct influence from Ozu in more than just a titular way (I Was Born, But…), the film is a quiet work that’s oftentimes strangely funny, that finds genuine beauty in the most mundane of things and experiences. I’ll have more to say on the subject as the film debuts in limited release on February 14. Find the new trailer below.