Gigantically played

As soon as the prison gates close behind her and she is released into freedom, the young woman knocks again. She doesn't know where to go. No one is waiting for her out there. But because Agnieszka is not allowed back into prison, she flees to Germany to escape the merciless city of Katowice and her past there. Michael Schernthaner saw the lead actress Karolina Gorczyca during filming and was impressed by her acting performance. "She's gigantic," he says. She embodies the fate of many young people who flee from the hopeless and merciless situation in their home country to a supposedly more promising country. Without speaking the language and without a penny in her pocket, however, life there is also suddenly determined by hardship, and so Agnieszka meets a former ballet diva who runs an escort service. The lonely 70-year-old takes Agnieszka in and offers her a job as a dominatrix in her company. There, wealthy men pay women for corporal punishment. Officially, there are two rules: no undressing, no touching. But when Agnieszka meets 16-year-old Manuel, her loyalty to Madame is put to the test.Tomasz Emil Rudzik wrote and directed the gripping drama. For Michael Schernthaner, it was the third time he had worked with the talented young director from Poland. "He directs the Actors so skillfully that you get to the end result imperceptibly. And he's a really great person," says Schernthaner. The majority of the film was shot in Katowice. For Michael Schernthaner, the days spent filming there were very impressive. "Katowice is the Ruhrpott of Poland, hard, dreary, gray in gray, depressing. But with incredibly warm and welcoming people."

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