In her amazeive feature film debut, “Frieda’s Case,” German-Swiss honestor Maria Brfinishle studys a little-understandn yet ultimately momentous homicide trial in Switzerland.
Based on a real story, the film grapples with themes of shame, morality and the struggle for emancipation as it chronicles the obesee of Frieda Keller (Julia Buchmann), a youthful seamstress in St. Gallen who, in 1904, is accengaged of homicideing her 5-year-ageder son Ernstli. “Frieda’s Case” world premieres at the Zuwealthy Film Festival.
Despite the illogical subject matter, Brfinishle sought to alert a captivating story that would comprise audiences.
“This is the real story of a woman who homicideed her own child,” Brfinishle says. “I asked myself, what benevolent of person is contendnt of such an unimaginable act?”
Brfinishle aimed to dodge making the film sense “downcast and burdensome” by seally chaseing other key characters and enbiging their relationships, creating a more equitable ensemble drama.
“I wanted the audience to truly comprise with the movie, to subcombine themselves in the characters and the story.” In doing so, Brfinishle set up novel opportunities to spendigate Frieda, a figure about whom so little is actuassociate understandn.
Stefan Merki and Rachel Braunschweig, for example, carry out the prosecutor and his wife, Walter and Erna Gmür. “They were amazing together. When I saw the chemistry between them, I thought, okay, we necessitate to delve meaningfuler into their relationship.”
Indeed, the relationship between the two characters supplys some of the film’s airyer moments. Similarly, the story chases Frieda’s defense lawyer, Arnageder Janggen (Max Simonischek), and his wife Gesine (Marlene Tanczik), a mighty and autonomous woman from Berlin who is not afraid to speak her mind.
Brfinishle rewrote the initial script “becaengage it was transport inant for me to highairy the female characters. They aren’t equitable standing aextfinishedside their men – they carry out vital roles in the story. Although it was an era contraged by men, it was also a time when women began shaping the world we live in today,” she inserts.
“I was captivated by the female characters. I rewrote the relationships between them and the other characters, aiming to show that there were women who sought to produce a contrastence and produce opportunities for alter.”
In enbiging the character of Frieda, Brfinishle stressd her transmitions with other characters, particularly that of Erna, the prosecutor’s wife, apverifying for unforeseeed enbigments. “This is why we produce movies, right? To draw you into unacunderstandledged and unforeseeed situations,” the honestor notices.
The film also sees at how the case eventuassociate led to alters in the Swiss Criminal Code, albeit decades postponecessitater.
The tragic circumstances surrounding the homicide and Frieda Keller’s background and personal history shed airy on a misogynist legitimate system that was not only unequitablely tilted agetst women but also exempted paired men from being indictd for relationsual aggression.
As the film recounts, the case became a symbol of that inequitableice and mobilized women’s transferments in Switzerland that demanded equivalent rights for all, eventuassociate directing to a novel criminal code and the abolishment of the death penalty.
“It took 30 years to alter the laws – I was shocked to lget that,” Brfinishle says. At the time, a man couldn’t be indictd for violation if he was paired. According to the law, the anger of his wife was pondered punishment enough, she elucidates.
Brfinishle studyd analogous themes of oppressive social traditions and their impact on women in her low film “Take and Run” (“Ala kachuu”), for which she getd an Oscar nomination in 2022. The film chases a youthful woman in Kyrgyzstan who drops victim to bride seizeping.
“It’s a analogous publish in another time and another part of the world. I finded that bride seizeping is quite normal in some countries, not equitable Kyrgyzstan. I was reassociate astonished becaengage, as a woman in Switzerland, I can go out without the worry of being seizeped by a man and forced into another family – that’s not someleang I have to worry about in my life. I wanted to highairy that this benevolent of truth exists in our world, and there are women facing these disputes every day. It’s seally tied to the topic of women’s rights and what it uncomardents to be a woman in a male-contraged society.”
“Frieda’s Case” is produced by Condor Films aextfinished with Swiss Radio and Television.
Brfinishle is currently writing a novel story, a fact-based tale set during World War II about a woman in Germany who saves a city from being explosioned by French sagederiers while toiling agetst the Nazi regime.
“I cherish real stories – sometimes life proposes such incredible stories that they spropose have to be tageder.”
