»The body can impose terrible limits, it can become an obsession. To all intents and purposes, everything might be related to the body. Thus, we search for something that is aside from it, we miss this thing that is outside of it.«
– Małgorzata Szumowska

Seeing dead bodies is part of Janusz’s everyday routine. As a coroner, he investigates precisely. At the scene of the crime, he analyses every detail. In dealing with his anorexic daughter Olga and her suicidal thoughts, however, Janusz is helpless, as if in a daze. The girl is still mourning the death of her mother and seemingly wants her own body to wither away. Because Janusz does not know how to help his daughter, he has her admitted to a clinic where we meet Anna, a psychiatrist. Anna lost her baby some years ago and has since then lived alone with her big dog and a curious penchant for the esoteric. Three persons who have each lost a loved one – three radically different approaches to body and mind. Anna’s belief in the incorporeal is not entirely dissimilar to Olga’s desire for a disembodied spirit. Janusz, on other hand, believes in nothing.

Małgorzata Szumowska works here with elements of black comedy to address the difficulty of processing loss of loved ones. She has filmed this serious topic in quiet, unhurried images without pathos – but also not without quirky and thoughtful humour.

In cooperation with Polnisches Institut Düsseldorf.

Awards for ›Body‹
Silberner Bär Regie Berlinale 2015