The Forest for the Trees

Germany, 2003

Melany, a young teacher from a rural area in Germany, moves to the city and starts working in high school for the first time, full of good will and ideals. In an emotional speech in the teachers’ room she promises to be a “refreshing wind” at school and to try new teaching methods. But nobody wished for Melany to arrive and she is accepted chillingly by both teachers and students. In her solitude, Melany makes contact with her neighbor Tina. Tina answers politely, but the more Melany suffers from the students’ shameful attitude towards her, the more her efforts to approach Tina become harassment and are denied. The Forest for the Trees, Maren Ade’s first film, is a special one. The modest and multi-nuanced acting and the fine directing succeed in exposing the fragility and the deep loneliness of the human soul, and to raise questions about the boundaries between a man and another and between sanity and madness.

Fiction  | 35 mm  |  81   Minutes  |  Color  |  German, English & Hebrew subtitles

Screenplay: Maren Ade
Cast: Eva Löbau, Daniela Holtz, Jan Neumann
Cinematography: Nikolai von Graevenitz
Editing: Heike Parplies
Production: Janine Jackowski
Festivals: Sundance, Toronto, Rio de Janeiro
Source: Sola Media, Germany

Screened with the films:
You Will Know

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