No sooner have the prison gates closed behind her and she has been released into freedom than the young woman knocks again. She does not know where to go. No one is waiting for her out there. But since they will not let the Pole Agnieszka back into prison, she flees the merciless city of Katowice and her past there for Germany. Michael Schernthaner observed lead actress Karolina Gorczyca during the shoot and was thrilled by her performance. "She plays gigantically," he says. She embodies the fate of many young people who flee the hopeless and merciless situation in their homeland for a supposedly more promising country. Without speaking the language and without a penny in their pocket, there too it is hardship that abruptly governs their lives. And so Agnieszka comes upon a former ballet diva who runs an escort service. The lonely 70-year-old takes Agnieszka in and offers her a position as a dominatrix in her business. There, wealthy men pay women for physical chastisement. Officially, two rules apply: no undressing, no touching. But when Agnieszka gets to know the 16-year-old Manuel, her loyalty to Madame is put to a hard test. The gripping drama was written and directed by Tomasz Emil Rudzik. For Michael Schernthaner it was the third time he had worked with the young directing talent from Poland. "He guides the actors so skilfully that you arrive at the result without even noticing. And on top of that he is a truly wonderful person," recounts Schernthaner. The greater part of the film was shot in Katowice. For Michael Schernthaner those were very striking days of filming. "Katowice is the Ruhr region of Poland — hard, bleak, grey on grey, oppressive. But with incredibly warm and kind-hearted people."
To the film on the Arte mediathek