Forgive Me
Vergeef Me
Synopsis
Hoping to end the stream of violence and misery on television, the idealistic filmmaker Cyrus Frisch strikes a deal with the devil and openly sets out to destroy his protagonists. How long can the viewer stay a passive accomplice?
Selling himself to the devil (he quotes Murnau’s Faust), Cyrus Frisch ventures even further into controversial territory in Forgive Me than his previous work – this time in the ambitious form of a feature film. He develops a dialectic between himself as a provocateur, theater maker, scriptwriter of human lives, and the protagonist of his own film. He penetrates the lives of ‘marginal figures’ he has encountered on the street: the alcoholic whoremonger Peter and his psychotic alcoholic ex-girlfriend Chiquita, her ex-boyfriend suffering from a rare disease, the wheelchair-bound heroin addict Achmed, a woman whose daughter was murdered by a junkie, and Astrid, who dreams of a career as a singer. Frisch began filming brutal scenes with these physically and/or mentally disabled people, whose dignity is either given away or taken away. When an initial edited report at the IDFA evoked only positive reactions, he decided to continue. Frisch provokes questions about the morality of (his) filming, and thereby the morality of the viewer who is tossed back and forth between disgust and fascination for that disgust, yet continues to watch.
- Director: Cyrus Frisch
- Writer: Cyrus Frisch
- Main cast: Nico, Chiquita, Peter, Achmed, Verhoef, Astrid, Ellen ten Damme, Sylvia Kristel, Marien Jongewaard, Cyrus Frisch
- Producer: Phanta Film - Petra Goedings, Stichting Filmkracht
- Distributor: Upstream Picture
Festivals:
IFFR Rotterdam 2001; Dutch Film Festival 2001; Film Festival Flanders – Gent 2001; Cairo Film Festival 2001; IFF Bratislava 2001; IFF Munchen 2002; Berlin Beta Film Festival 2002