Schanelec, Angela

Thirteen German directors present short films exploring the state of their country.

The first shot is a static image: a view from the stage of a theatre onto the auditorium. In the foreground – and on the stage – lies a dog. A woman named Irene (Angela Schanelec), approaches it, pets it. This seems to be a rehearsal, a few people occupy seats in the auditorium, they are somewhat restless. It remains unclear whether the events being presented to us are indeed part of a rehearsal, or whether, assuming a rehearsal is indeed underway, they are merely occurring along its margins. Angela Schanelec's film "Afternoon" never returns to this initial image, never returns to the theatre. Only later will a figure from the same scene - the one involving the woman and the dog - describe it as something she saw in the theatre.

An attempt to observe life from the outside - to gain distance, to not interfere, to just observe. Two young women sitting in a café on a summer day, a family arriving at the airport, an older woman sitting alone in a train, adult children standing in front of the hospital where their father is dying. Situations found everyday, a thousand times over. But what happens when you try to depict this normality?

Deutschland 09 - 13 kurze Filme zur Lage der Nation (2009)

Thirteen German directors present short films exploring the state of their country.