Shooting has concluded on Jutta Brückner's The Assistance (German title: Die Assistentin, lit. “the female assistant”), starring Corinna Harfouch (best known for her turns in Treffen in Travers, nominated for a European Film Award, Downfall [+lire aussi :
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bande-annonce
interview : Bernd Eichinger
interview : Joachim Fest
interview : Oliver Hirschbiegel
fiche film], and Lara [+lire aussi :
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bande-annonce
interview : Jan Ole Gerster
fiche film], winner of the Best Actress award in Karlovy Vary, and seen recently in Dying [+lire aussi :
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bande-annonce
interview : Matthias Glasner
interview : Tapis rouge @ European Fil…
fiche film]), Hildegard Schmahl (Mittagsstunde) and Carla Juri (best known for Wetlands [+lire aussi :
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interview : David Wnendt
fiche film], recently in Breathing Underwater [+lire aussi :
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interview : Éric Lamhène et Rae Lyn Lee
fiche film]).

Harfouch plays Ursula, an archaeologist whose mother mysteriously dies after she uncovers a perfectly preserved bog body. Circumstances become more complex when Ursula hires an assistant named Mel to help her, the reference of the German title, but this mysterious young woman seems to know much more about the researcher’s past than she should. Daniela Knapp (winner of the German Film Award for The Poll Diaries [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Chris Kraus
fiche film]) serves as the film’s cinematographer, while Mona Bräuer will edit the film and production design is by Max-Josef Schönborn.

Brückner returns to create feature films 20 years after her last effort, the 2005 film The Hitler Cantate, in total having made nine feature films between 1975 and 2005. She is a Düsseldorf-born director for film, theatre and radio who began creating films in the 1970s; her work includes both fiction and documentary. Her autobiographical 1980 film The Hunger Years (Hungerjahre) won the FIPRESCI prize at Berlinale, and she served as the head of the Berlinale jury in 1981. Brückner has also won the German Film Critics Award three times for her work.

The film is produced by Christine Kiauk and Herbert Schwering for Coin Film. Additional funding was provided by Hessen Film, Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, the German Federal Film Board (FFA)/German Federal Film Fund (DFFF) and Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg (MBB) and. X Verleih will distribute the film in cooperation with Warner Bros. in Germany in 2026.