Phillip, a thirteen-year-old schoolboy, disappears without a trace for a week. When he reappears, his mother is faced with questions that lead her to see her own life in a new light. She and his teachers can only guess what the boy was looking for, wondering whether he had been in the woods or was toying with death, triggered by his father’s passing. His mother is unable to allow her son to live a life of his own on which she can only have a limited influence.
Angela Schanelec (Aalen, Germany. 1962) has directed, among other titles, Das Glück meiner kleinen Schwester (My Sister's Good Fortune, 1995), applauded with the Best Film award by the German Film Critics Association, Plätze in Städten (Places in Cities, 1998), presented in Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Festival, Marseille (2004), also screened in the same section, Nachmittag (Afternoon, 2007), shown at the Berlinale Forum, and Der traumhafte Weg (The Dreamed Path, 2016), with which she competed at Locarno. With Ich war zuhause, aber (I Was At Home, But) she won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the last Berlin Festival.