Starring: Zelda Espenschied, Miriam Schiweck, Freya Kreutzkam, Bernd Wolf

The Future of Film is Female presents a preview screening of Sabrina Mertens’ debut feature TIME OF MOULTING featuring a Q&A with Mertens after the film. To make an additional $10 donation to The Future of Film is Female, select the “Event + Donation” ticket on the checkout screen.

In a small town in 1970s West Germany, Stephanie (played by a charming Zelda Espenschied as a young child, and a surly Miriam Schiweck “ten years later”) is raised by two parents who have no business having children. Her mother, who is never far from despair-induced collapse, suffers from an unspecified medical condition and her father makes it clear that he has no patience for his daughter. In Sabrina Mertens impressive debut feature, we see how young Stephanie takes solace in exploring the mysteries hidden away in the increasingly untidy house, particularly the trunk full of her grandfather’s butcher’s equipment while older Stephanie takes far more sinister comfort in the tools found therein.

Time of Moulting is a heavily atmospheric and harrowing portrait of the ways in which repressed family dynamics can influence and infect the lives of younger generations.