Project Description

JOSEFA AND THE POLISH GIRL’S CHILD

in development

Historical Drama | AT/PL

Austria, the Upper Danube district of the Third Reich. In the summer of 1944, with her husband at the front, the farmer’s wife Josefa, 35, and her daughter Theres, 13, are assigned a Polish girl as a forced labourer. It soon emerges that 16-year-old Krystyna is pregnant: she was raped. To protect the girl from being subjected to a forced abortion, Josefa doesn’t report the pregnancy. But soon after the baby is born it all comes out, and Krystyna’s little son is taken from her and placed in the Non-Aryan Children’s Home.

When the baby becomes seriously ill, Krystyna abducts him and hides him on the farm, with Josefa‘s help. But Theres becomes jealous and tells the authorities where the baby is.

Written by Susanne Rendl
Directed by Sabine Derflinger

Producer: Ursula Wolschlager
Co-Producer: tba (Poland)
Cast: tba

Development supported by Vienna Film Fund, The Austrian Film Institute, Land Oberösterreich Culture