Angela Schanelec (born 14 February 1962) is a German actress, film
director and screenwriter. Her film Places in Cities was screened in
the Un Certain Regard section at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. At the
69th Berlin International Film Festival, Schanelec won the Silver Bear
for Best Director for her film I Was at Home, But.Schanelec was born
in Aalen, Baden-Württemberg, in Germany. Her artistic career began as
an actress onstage; however, she is best known today for her career as
a filmmaker, which began during her time at the Berlin Film and
Television Academy (dffb). There, she studied under Harun Farocki and
Hartmut Bitomsky, and met Christian Petzold and Thomas Arslan, with
whom she comprised the so-called first wave of the Berlin School.
During this time, she produced her thesis film, I Stayed in Berlin All
Summer, a 47-minute featurette. Schanelec, Petzold and Arslan found
support in the budding artistic scene of post-reunification Berlin,
and in the production company Schramm Film, operated by Michael Weber
and Florian Koerner von Gustorf. Since graduating from dffb, She has
written and directed 6 features and contributed segments to the
anthology films Bridges of Sarajevo and Germany 09: 13 Short Films
About the State of the Nation.Schanelec's films have premiered at
numerous renowned film festivals, including the Cannes Film Festival,
the Berlin International Film Festival, and the Toronto International
Film Festival. Critics have generally embraced her cinematic style,
which almost exclusively employs lengthy, static shots with little
action and ambiguous emotional content, tenuously connected by a
narrative. Marco Abel, a scholar of the Berlin School, argues that her
films function through "affective images" which reach the viewer
primarily through their visual content, mostly without requiring
narrative context. She is frequently compared to several European
avant-garde filmmakers, such as Chantal Akerman, Michelangelo
Antonioni, and Robert Bresson, whom she has cited as an important
influence. However, Derek Elley, writing for Variety, called Places in
Cities a "joyless snoozer" and remarked that Schanelec's films "throw
out no emotional lifelines for the viewer."
director and screenwriter. Her film Places in Cities was screened in
the Un Certain Regard section at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. At the
69th Berlin International Film Festival, Schanelec won the Silver Bear
for Best Director for her film I Was at Home, But.Schanelec was born
in Aalen, Baden-Württemberg, in Germany. Her artistic career began as
an actress onstage; however, she is best known today for her career as
a filmmaker, which began during her time at the Berlin Film and
Television Academy (dffb). There, she studied under Harun Farocki and
Hartmut Bitomsky, and met Christian Petzold and Thomas Arslan, with
whom she comprised the so-called first wave of the Berlin School.
During this time, she produced her thesis film, I Stayed in Berlin All
Summer, a 47-minute featurette. Schanelec, Petzold and Arslan found
support in the budding artistic scene of post-reunification Berlin,
and in the production company Schramm Film, operated by Michael Weber
and Florian Koerner von Gustorf. Since graduating from dffb, She has
written and directed 6 features and contributed segments to the
anthology films Bridges of Sarajevo and Germany 09: 13 Short Films
About the State of the Nation.Schanelec's films have premiered at
numerous renowned film festivals, including the Cannes Film Festival,
the Berlin International Film Festival, and the Toronto International
Film Festival. Critics have generally embraced her cinematic style,
which almost exclusively employs lengthy, static shots with little
action and ambiguous emotional content, tenuously connected by a
narrative. Marco Abel, a scholar of the Berlin School, argues that her
films function through "affective images" which reach the viewer
primarily through their visual content, mostly without requiring
narrative context. She is frequently compared to several European
avant-garde filmmakers, such as Chantal Akerman, Michelangelo
Antonioni, and Robert Bresson, whom she has cited as an important
influence. However, Derek Elley, writing for Variety, called Places in
Cities a "joyless snoozer" and remarked that Schanelec's films "throw
out no emotional lifelines for the viewer."
Share this
SUBSCRIBE OUR NEWSLETTER
SUBSCRIBE OUR NEWSLETTER
Join us for free and get valuable content delivered right through your inbox.