JULIA'S MADNESS 

Filmmaker Hannes Schönemann tells the story of a love affair between himself and a Danish woman, Julia Szabad – a story that spans over several decades and stretches between two countries placed in opposing camps of the Cold War. Julia met Schönemann when she visited East Germany on a cultural exchange program during the 1960s. From that moment and until Julia’s death, their love was consumed intermittently, between rare meetings, long breaks punctuated by enigmatic postcard exchanges, and historical events experienced separately, from different corners of the world. A spy for the Danish Foreign Service, Julia was caught in a web of intrigue which proved too complicated for her. Schönemann’s first-person documentary, which mixes home videos and footage from films produced in the GDR in the 1970s and 1980s with material shot in the present, is a moving act of recollection which captures, in gorgeous cinematic form, the insidious violence of the states involved, whether on this or that side of the Wall.

 

Release: 1998 (Denmark)

Duration: 96 minutes

Genre: Documentary feature

Spoken language: German and English

 

Director: Hannes Schönemann

Screenplay: Hannes Schönemann

Cinematography: Lars Barthel, Thomas Plenert and Johann Feindt

Editor: Reinhardt Beetz
Sound Design: Uve Haußig

Music: Lutz Wernicke

Producer: Heino Deckert

Production Countries: Germany, Denmark and Finland

Production Company: Ma.Ja.De. Filmproduktion

Coproducers: Arte, Czech TV, Epidam Film Oy, MDR, Magic Hour Film and WDR

Produced with support from: 

AVEK, The Danish Film Institute, Eurimages, Kulturelle Filmförderung Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and The MEDIA Programme of the European Union.