Jonna & Louis

Directed by Linda Verweyen

Synopsis:
Jonna's childhood friend Louis assaulted her sexually when they were both about 12 years old. While Louis almost forgot the incident, Jonna is struggling with PTSD. The situation is very demanding on Jonna's loved ones as well. Does an offender have to act in bad faith to be violent? Who is to be blamed? The docu-fiction-short is a montage of five staged interviews while playing with common clichés and constructs of offenders and victims.

Director Statement:
With this short film, I want to talk about sexual violence without reproducing the classic images of offender and victim, without categorising people and actions as good or bad. I know from my own experience that the consequences and experiences of sexualised violence are so complex in reality that the usual narratives cannot do justice to them. It's not always the sad, quiet girl who can't talk about the incident, who was assaulted. It's not the brutal and scary guy who experienced violence in his childhood that becomes a perpetrator himself. Sad music, desaturated images, an angry father, a crying mother. This is not reality. Reality is: everyday life, something that could happen to each and everyone of us. We could be the victim. We could be the offender.