Shock head soul.

Hlava duse sok

This feature length documentary-drama starring Hugo Koolschijn in the lead role is based on the autobiographical writings on madness by Daniel Paul Schreber published in 1903. Daniel Paul Schreber was a successful judge who, in 1893, started to receive messages from God via a cosmic 'Writing Down Machine'. He then spent the next 9 years in an asylum: tortured by delusions of cosmic control, convinced that he was changing gender. Schreber believed that only by submitting to God's plan to change him into a woman would the world be saved. In the asylum he wrote 'Memoirs of my nervous illness', which argued that that his belief system was a matter of religious freedom and that he was sane enough to return to live with his wife and adopted daughter. The legal argument regarding Schreber's sanity is used as the premise for experts on psychiatry and psychoanalysis to bear witness on his case. Schreber's father, Moritz Schreber, published a number of child-rearing pamphlets describing restraining devices to modify behaviour in children such as sitting up straight. These are portrayed in an exceedingly sinister light in the film.

This feature length documentary-drama starring Hugo Koolschijn in the lead role is based on the autobiographical writings on madness by Daniel Paul Schreber published in 1903. Daniel Paul Schreber was a successful judge who, in 1893, started to receive messages from God via a cosmic 'Writing Down Machine'. He then spent the next 9 years in an asylum: tortured by delusions of cosmic control, convinced that he was changing gender. Schreber believed that only by submitting to God's plan to change him into a woman would the world be saved. In the asylum he wrote 'Memoirs of my nervous illness', which argued that that his belief system was a matter of religious freedom and that he was sane enough to return to live with his wife and adopted daughter. The legal argument regarding Schreber's sanity is staged and used as the premise to stage for experts on psychiatry and psychoanalysis who are called to bear witness on his case. Schreber's father, Moritz Schreber, published a number of child-rearing pamphlets describing restraining devices to modify behaviour in children such as sitting up straight. These are portrayed in an exceedingly sinister light in the film.

Netherlands-United Kingdom : Hot Property Films, 2012.

1 DVD (86 min.) : sound, color

Delicatessen Films 2012

Wellcome Trust grant output: grantholder; Simon Pummell , grant number; 085370, grant type; Large Arts Award (Sci-Art R&D 080613)

Written and directed by Simon Pummell, produced by Janine Marmot, Hot Property Films.