German Film Screening: Woodland

New Films from Germany

Marian Malin (played by the brilliant Brigitte Hobmeier) has everything she could hope for: a successful career a deep romantic love and time to pursue her passions. Everything is perfect until she and her husband witness a deadly terrorist attack in the heart of Vienna. Plagued with post-traumatic flashbacks Marian is unable to function in the city and flees to a Lower Austria country house that once belonged to her grandparents. There in what seems like relative safety she freely roams the woods and rekindles a connection to the simple place she once called home. But it is not without its own presences including old friends Gerti and Franz both of whom stayed in the village and for whom Marian’s return summons questions about life-defining events.

Drawing inspiration from Wald a 2015 novel by the bestselling author Doris Knecht as well as her own traumatic experience of witnessing the 2020 Vienna attack writer-director Elisabeth Scharang retreats to the woods in this atmospheric and soul-stirring film.

Directed by Elisabeth Scharang

Austria 2023

DCP 95 min.

German with English subtitles

Host or Publisher goethe-institut boston