Opening 14 Jun 2012
Directed by:
Jan Fehse
Writing credits:
Christian Lyra
Principal actors:
Anne Schäfer, Wiebke Puls
A young woman is being submitted to exploratory questioning by a forensic psychiatrist. It is Dr.Feldt’s (Wiebke Puls) task to determine mitigating circumstances surrounding the murder Jasmin (Anne Schäfer) has committed. Two women in the visiting room of a mental hospital during four days – yet a whole life unfolds in this studio-theater-like setting as a steady camera holds close to their faces. No flashbacks take us visually back in time. We only encounter the two a few times outside this one room: Jasmin in her cell, Dr. Feldt on her way home: just enough to show that only one of them is free to leave.
In close collaboration with psychiatrists, Christian Lyra created a script based on real cases. Jan Fehse (director and camera) and his theater-experienced cast translated it into a sensitive portrait that shows that though a crime appears to be ‘monstrous’, the person who committed it shouldn’t be assumed a ‘monster’. Dr. Feldt has to be careful not to let her personal circumstances taint her questioning and evaluation. Her concept is to have Jasmin talk about her past first, and, in her own pace, advance to the time of the crime. When their sessions finally reach this moment – that would separate the “monster” from “us” the most – Feldt has found a level of understanding and sympathy with the accused. (Carola A)
