It’s well-established that the majority of sexualised violence doesn’t take place in the public sphere but in the seemingly protected realm of family, partnership and friends. This is also true of a young woman who was raped by a good friend on a private date. Her report was the occasion and basis of this film which interprets it first performatively, then analytically by women and men playing various roles.

In addition to the act itself, it addresses its consequences and how to deal with feelings of guilt, shame, paralysis and repression – but soon the performers’ own experiences as victims of perpetrators, too. In its directness and detail, speaking out is sometimes agonising for all participants. But talking and listening are the only chance to get hold of the phantoms and demons of the past and thus heal the wounds. Alexe Poukine’s differentiated and multi-faceted approach to an issue usually discussed in sensationalist terms offers us, the audience, a chance to dispassionately re-adjust our perspective on the act of rape.

Silvia Hallensleben