Why this film?

Child abuse is no longer a taboo subject. The media splash it all over cover pages almost every day. A few years ago, the mere mention of the word triggered a reaction of shock and horror, but today media consumers’ senses are already somewhat numbed. Abuse is as much a part of the daily news as the crossword or the weather forecast – with a similar emotional effect. If even that.

Basic idea

We look into the soul of an abused child and witness the grown woman’s realisation in an unconventional way.

The child shows us how it deals with its situation – rape by her father, who demands secrecy, thereby condemning her to speech- and helplessness. She confides in the only person who cannot give away her secret: her doll.

As a grown woman, she has suppressed the memory, cannot remember, and lives her life accompanied by an elusive suspicion. This suspicion triggers a search, and the search leads her to her childhood home.

The film’s objective

With its direct and intense depiction, the film aims to make the viewer an eyewitness of rape, without however satisfying the currently dominating lust for voyeurism. The intention of the explicit images is to hit the viewers hard, unsettle them – and make them want to step in and intervene. Ultimately, we experience the traumatic reality of a child in this situation on the one hand; and on the other, we are shown how complex and far reaching the repercussions are, and the magnitude of the psychological barrier to realising what happened and being able to deal with it.