Aimee & Jaguar director Max Farberbock’s new film is based on the diaries of the only woman to write (anonymously) about the still taboo topic of the mass rape of German women by Red Army soldiers at the end of World War II. The book is a unique historical record and caused a worldwide sensation on its re-publication in 2003. Much like its source material, Farberbock’s film tells its story with a combination of dispassionate clarity and complex human feeling.

The anonymous central character, brilliantly played by Nina Hoss (Yella, Jerichow), is a former Nazi supporter who approaches the threat of random rape in a pragmatic way. She decides to look for a ‘wolf’, a Russian officer who will protect her from the other soldiers. Much to her surprise, she begins to develop an interest in her protector, an officer whose innate decency is muddled by his loyalty to Stalin.