Woodland

In Elizabeth Scharang’s evocative drama, a journalist from Vienna retreats to her childhood village and her late grandparents’ barely habitable home as she copes with the trauma of witnessing a terrible crime. Marian (Brigittle Hobmeier) finds peace in the surrounding woods but it is not a comfortable homecoming — the townspeople resent her for critical articles she’s written and her best friends Gerti (Gerti Drassi) and Franz (Johannes Krisch) still feel the sting of being left behind. Marian has more to heal than just her wounded psyche as she recalls the tight bonds of her youth and attempts to mend broken relationships. Hobmeier delivers a nuanced performance as a woman shut down by the violence she experienced who gradually learns to embrace life again — not through the isolation she originally sought but by reaching for human connection.