Abuse during filming

Obonya: “I should have intervened more harshly”

Text: Well-known actors such as Cornelius Obonya and Erwin Steinhauer support young colleagues.

(Bild: Andreas Tischler / picturedesk.com)

Well-known actors such as Cornelius Obonya and Erwin Steinhauer support the actors who report on abuse of power and assaults in theater and film in the NDR documentary "Against Silence".

 In the film, which will be broadcast on NDR on March 11 and is already available online, serious accusations are made against directors Paulus Manker and Julian Pölsler. State Secretary for Culture Andrea Mayer (Greens) also spoke out.

"Long overdue"
For Obonya, the discussion of violence and assaults in the documentary, for which the two NDR reporters Zita Zengerling and Kira Gantner spoke to over 200 people, is a "long overdue invitation to all of us, especially to colleagues who are more established, who are older, who already have much more experience, to simply speak up".

"It has to end at some point"
To be honest, I find it completely unbearable that we are repeatedly confronted with such stories, with abuse of power, with sexualized violence, with verbal violence," Mayer is quoted as saying in "ZiB 2". "It has to stop now," said the State Secretary. Obonya, who was in front of the camera together with actress Lisa-Lena Tritscher in an "Altaussee thriller" directed by Pölsler, told ORF: "I could have intervened more harshly and should have intervened more harshly."

I could have intervened more forcefully and should have intervened more forcefully.

Cornelius Obonya

There are people "who know about it"
Steinhauer, who worked with Pölsler on the "Polt" films, also told ORF Topos that he had encouraged Tritscher to talk about her experiences. The actress is not the only one whose experiences he knows about. Pölsler is "one of those colleagues who have not understood that working relationships in film and theater are bound by certain rules: respect," Steinhauer told the Kleine Zeitung newspaper. "A big part of the problem in my eyes is that there is a structure that supports this. That there are people who know about it and those who keep their hands over it," criticized the actress Stefanie Speiser on "ZiB 2" about clients and production companies.

ORF no longer employs Pölsler
"While ORF has not employed Pölsler for several years, "Servus TV" is holding on to the director, according to the "Kleine Zeitung". "We always deal with such accusations respectfully and carefully towards everyone involved. However, we consider it problematic to publicly pillory someone without any legally or criminally relevant facts, but solely on the basis of the subjective interpretation of the program creators - 'It remains a suspicion'," the broadcaster said.

The accusations made by numerous actors and actresses in the NDR documentary in front of the camera are serious and range from advances, overnight invitations and awkward casting situations. Paulus Manker, against whom an actor and an actress from his "Alma" production made allegations of physical assaults, also comes under renewed scrutiny in the documentary. Both Manker and Pölser were not available for comment to NDR and had the allegations denied by their respective lawyers. Manker described the allegations to "ZiB 2" as fictitious.