IM ALTER VON ELLEN

Ellen is 43, a flight attendant, and finds out that her partner’s girlfriend is expecting his child. On her next flight she has a panic attack and has to leave the aircraft; walking across the tarmac, it becomes clear that she is leaving her old life behind. She falls in with a group of animal rights activists and meets Karl there, who is visibly drawn to the older woman. When he suggests she marry him so that he can avoid military service, she agrees – but the more she adapts to her new surroundings, the clearer it becomes that she still has to find her own way. Pia Marais’s “Im Alter von Ellen” (Germany 2010), with Jeanne Balibar, Stefan Stern and Georg Friedrich, is the portrait of a woman burning all her bridges.

Marais tells this life crisis as a tragicomedy with bizarre, almost surreal touches; animals mark the stages of a diffuse, puzzling journey. The film premiered in the international competition in Locarno in 2010. It was shown at Around the World in 14 Films in Berlin in 2010, in the Deutschland Spezial section.

Shown at the 2010 edition of Around the World in 14 Films.

All films 2010 · Film Archive