01/10/2025 - Veronika Hafner takes a bold thematic swing with her feature debut about a young man with involuntary paedophilic tendencies as he fights off shame and frustration

Veronika Hafner’s Obhut [+see also:
interview: Veronika Hafner
film profile] (meaning care and protection, as in to be in the care or under the protection of someone) is, fascinatingly, the second recent large German film, after Steve Bache’s No Dogs Allowed [+see also:
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interview: Steve Bache
film profile] (Tallinn Black Nights 2024), to tackle the topic of paedophilia. With this feature debut, Hafner approaches the theme with tremendous tact, from a screenplay by herself and Christian Hödl. (According to her festival biography, the Bavarian-born filmmaker is also a psychotherapist for youth and children.) Obhut has just had its world premiere in the Feature Film Competition of the 2025 Zurich Film Festival, vying for the Golden Eye.

Lukas (Jonas Holdenrieder) is an average guy in his early twenties, a university drop-out and football coach for pre-teen boys – except, in an opening sequence with his therapist, we learn that he battles with involuntary paedophilic thoughts for young girls, something he’s experienced since hitting puberty. He resolves to divulge this attraction to his beloved older sister Mara (Luise Heyer, Sound of Falling [+see also:
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trailer
interview: Mascha Schilinski
film profile]), as her daughter, Lena, is turning five – and he is terrified that he may develop these uncontrollable feelings towards the girl, who loves spending time with Lukas. He is further troubled when one of his players brings his sister, Giorgia (Morena Klotzbier), to practice, and Lukas can’t say no to letting the athletically talented girl join, despite experiencing attraction.

Obhut is at its best when it centres on the complex sibling relationship, driven by the familial chemistry of the excellent leading duo. Holdenrieder, perhaps best known for a set of early-career parts in popular German comedies, shows off his ability to carry a very heavy dramatic role shot through with the constant emotion of shame; similarly, Heyer says everything that needs to be said with a broken smile, containing layers of feelings within it: unconditional love towards her brother, concern for her daughter and insecurity around what to do with all of it. The film has a taste of Sara Miro Fischer’s The Good Sister [+see also:
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interview: Sarah Miro Fischer & Marie …
film profile], which features a close adult brother-sister story revolving around the matter of trust and belief in the case of a sexual assault accusation levelled against the brother. However, Hafner intentionally leads with one fact necessary for our understanding of this story: Lukas does not act on his impulses.

A debut made with lesser confidence could easily have become too didactic, less believable or repulsive. She offers us no opportunity for our minds to wander beyond what she presents on screen. While his flatmate easily connects with a woman his age, Lukas prefers to watch videos of a young girl who is a social-media influencer – but this never moves beyond the audio, and we never see the subject of his fascination. Instead, the helmer places us into the midst of Lukas’s sheer helplessness and the immense taboo of his condition, aided by lensing by DoP Holger Jungnickel, which brings us up close to the actors’ faces.

Only near the end does Hafner hammer things home a bit too hard, veering into a subplot of a pseudo-hunt by Mara when she becomes obsessed with figuring out whether Lukas is lying. In this sense, Mara represents the broader social reaction to the topic – but perhaps even more progressive – struggling with her empathy for her brother while desperate for answers she thinks might be there. Despite Hafner’s attempt to show some possibility for relief for individuals in Lukas’s situation, she ends up demonstrating the lack of a social support system for them to speak freely and receive care – the world is not that simple.

Obhut is a German production by Munich-based Elfenholz Film GmbH. Its world sales are up for grabs.