How Rotterdam Jury Award Winner ‘In My Parents’ House’ Captures the Enigma of Schizophrenia
Writer-director Tim Ellrich took on a particularly challenging and very personal subject for his narrative feature debut Im Haus Meiner Eltern (In My Parents’ House), which recently world premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR): schizophrenia.
Inspired by Ellrich’s own family experiences and shot on location at his childhood home, the film explores the toll that caregiving takes on families. Presented in black and white, it also captures the sense of claustrophobia that comes with it. The film convinced the Rotterdam experts, leading it to receive a Tiger Special Jury Award at IFFR, which wrapped up this weekend.
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“Holle works as a spiritual healer, tending to clients with serious illnesses and chronic conditions. One of four siblings, she devotes much of her time to caring for her aging parents, a commitment that strains her relationship with her partner,” a synopsis on the Rotterdam website reads. “When her mother suffers a fall and is hospitalized, Holle faces mounting challenges, particularly in relation to her brother Sven, who has schizophrenia and has lived a secluded life in their parents’ attic for years.”
Ellrich’s movie “avoids easy judgments, instead offering a thoughtful reflection on how society treats the elderly and infirm and the friction these responsibilities create within families – from those who shoulder the burden to those who keep their distance,” the summary also highlights. “With empathy and an understated approach, Im Haus meiner Eltern examines the unspoken tensions and quiet sacrifices that define family life under pressure.”
Check out a trailer for the film here.
The ensemble cast of the film includes Jenny Schily, Ursula Werner, Manfred Zapatka, Jens Brock, Markus Schleinzer, Johannes Zeiler, Kirsten Block, Peter Schneider, and Markus Lerch.
Fresh off his jury honor at Rotterdam, Ellrich talked to THR‘s Georg Szalai about the challenges of portraying schizophrenia on screen, including casting, why he chose a black-and-white aesthetic, and xxx.
Please tell me a bit about your family’s history with schizophrenia and why you decided to make a film about this experience.
I had a schizophrenic uncle who lived in the same house. And the film was shot in my grandparents’ house. When I grew up, I always saw him sitting there in the kitchen, being very secluded. And when you grow up with it and then you start telling friends about it, and you see their reactions, you realize that this is an unusual thing. Still, people can relate to it. I knew one day I would have to make a movie about this. It happened to be my first fiction feature. When I started working on it, the character of my mother came more and more into focus, the one who’s caretaking.
Have you seen schizophrenia portrayed in films before and, if so, what was your impression of them?
I often didn’t like the portrayal of schizophrenia in films because they most often pretended to be in the head of the schizophrenic and tried to find deceitful or untrue images. I had the opposite feeling. I saw a man I didn’t understand. I was a bit scared of him and tried to avoid him. He tried to avoid me. And then I would go home with my family, and we would start asking questions about what he is thinking. And I would go home and ask myself questions. That was the feeling I wanted to capture, that this is an enigma. And it will never be understood.
Some of the family try to avoid discussions about schizophrenia. How much did you want to move viewers to not shy away from such conversations?
I think the films I want to make are always about opening up a dialog and giving people the space and opportunity to open up to things they normally don’t address in life. This is a specific case of schizophrenia. But I was very purposefully putting the family in focus. It was important to me to make clear that this is affecting people on different levels.
I put something of myself out there and on the line. Maybe that was a little bit harder for me to do in this case, and I had to be a little bit courageous because it’s very intimate. But if you do that as a filmmaker, then people in the audience have the ability to care because they feel, “Oh, he put something on the line.” That’s an interaction between the audience and the filmmaker, and that engagement was most important.
That’s also why I’m always happy if you don’t give a clear answer in films. I want people to wonder and go home and think about it and maybe address something that should be addressed. Not like in this family where things are never addressed, and then 30 years later, it’s too late.
Have you shown the film to your family? What was their reaction? I am particularly interested to hear what your mother thinks since you dedicated the film to her…
I cast my whole family, so every character is somebody I know or knew – my father, my mother, my uncle, grandparents. Yes, I showed it to them. The response was quite good. Especially my mother really liked it. She’s also working as a spiritual healer, and so, I was afraid at first that maybe I’m not portraying it the right way for her. But no, she likes it, and she feels very seen by it. And she thinks it’s a very important topic to address things. With my schizophrenic uncle, I think a lot of people see that he had a very forgotten life, and the film kind of brings a little bit of attention back. And I think my family members can appreciate that.
Tell me a bit about the actors.
Especially Jenny Shelley (who plays Holle) does an amazing job. I think she just brought a lot of herself into the role.
Jens Brock, who plays the schizophrenic man, is a non-professional. We street-cast people for the role. And we found him sitting on a bench in Berlin. He was on the way to a doctor’s appointment, and we stopped him and asked, “Are you interested in going to the casting for a movie?” And he came, and he had this unbelievable presence.
And this is the thing. I think he was scary for (the actors in the cast) because he’s not a professional and he’s tall and big – you don’t know what he will do. So I think that also helped create a tension that can be like schizophrenia.
When and why did you decide to use black and white images?
We first shot it in color, so this was not planned to do. And in the editing, we thought something was not connecting. Our editor, Tobias Wilhelmer, realized that by taking away the color, focusing on the minimal, just putting up the bare minimum and the existential things, it just made it a little bit more poetic, more focused, and emotional, with a strong atmosphere that is more claustrophobic. I feel it’s the perfect way to tell this story. Filmmaking is always a process.
The film is a very giving movie in the sense that you make yourself very vulnerable and share a lot with the audience. What did it take from you?
What people sometimes don’t know is how many things happen during any kind of film that still influences it a lot. During the production of the film, my schizophrenic uncle died, and this directly influenced the film’s narrative and its whole development.
Also on a personal note, this film (took) a lot from me. I lost the love of my life, had other personal health challenges but we had to finish the film nonetheless. Especially my team helped me in these times and was always there for me. I’m very grateful to each and everyone of them. It’s a very ambigious feeling now when a personal film like this comes out and sees the light of the world. I do hope it speaks to people who are in a similar situation like Holle.
So what does it feel like to show to the world such a personal film?
it’s very funny because when you make a very personal film, you completely can’t tell if it’s complete and utter bullshit or good. It’s just very early in the process. But it had a very strong premiere in Rotterdam, so some pressure fell off. And we just won the Special Jury Award which is surreal. Now we will see, but there’s some relief. I got the chains of my heritage off, and now I can do something that is, maybe not different but more free.
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