That’s All from Me

That’s All from Me begins as an image-less conversation between two women.

A documentary filmmaker, Isabel Ostergaard (Charlotte Munck) is having difficulty returning to her creative work after becoming a mother. In the hope of regaining some form of inspiration, she writes to an author who reflected on her own experiences of parenthood some decades earlier, Helen During (Eleanor Forbes). The two exchange letters and then video notes before Helen suggests Isabel makes a film about bird watchers, which she duly does.

The form of the film follows the trajectory of Isabel’s own journey. When she first writes to Helen, and the latter responds, their voices are heard against a black screen. Often in the history of films without images, the lack of visual material underscores a political point, but here it is psychological – while Isabel feels blocked, the screen is too. Only upon being unlocked ever so slightly by Helen’s questions, does this shift and the second pair of messages are heard in concert with verite observational footage before culminating in a fully formed short within the short.

Through all of these, the conversations cleverly unpack the internal wranglings that Isabel has regarding motherhood and her – not quite explicitly spoken – fear that there isn’t room for both it and filmmaking within one person. Indeed, when she finally is unlocked enough to make a film about something else, it becomes about the reproductive cycles of birds and the all-consuming effort that goes into rearing young every year. That’s All from Me feels gentle enough to catch you off guard, but there is a richness to its enquiry that resonates deeply.

Director, screenplay, cinematography, editing, sound: Eva Konnemann
Cast: Charlotte Munck, Eleanor Forbes, Jannis Dimmlich
Production companies: Eva Konnemann Produktion (Germany)
Venue: Berlinale (Berlinale Shorts)
In English, German
23 minutes