PASSION DESPAIR | A film by Steff Gruber 1
PASSION DESPAIR
A film by Steff Gruber
Documentary film
Switzerland 2011
Running time
93 minutes
Shooting locations
Moldova, Transnistria
Languages
German, English, Russian, Moldovan, French
Subtitles
German, English
Colour
Colour/black&white
Producer
Steff Gruber
Associate Producer
Cyrille Kazis
Production Company
KINO.NET AG, Zurich Switzerland
KINO.NET AG
Hafnerstrasse 60 | CH-8005 Zurich
phone ++41 44 272 79 00 | fax ++41 44 272 80 73
email kino@kino.net | www.kino.net
PRESS SERVICE
email diana.baermann@kino.net
www.passion-despair.com
PASSION DESPAIR | A film by Steff Gruber 2
CREDITS
Director | Producer
Photography
Narrator
Original Score
Additional Music
Associate Producer
Production
With
STEFF GRUBER
JÜRG HASSLER
STEFF GRUBER
PETER RICHNER
JIMMY GELHAAR
„Temptation“ by ARASH
CYRILLE KAZIS
KINO.NET AG
DANIEL LEUENBERGER
ROMINA JURAVSKAIA
OLGA STEPNOVA
KATJA NEUGODNIKOVA
ANA NEUGODNIKOVA
ANA NASUSHNAIA
LARISA SIRBU
LUBA VOITETCAIA
TAMARA ZAITSEVA
TATIANA GLATKOVA
VALENTINA GLATKOVA
SVETLANA REICH
a.o.
PASSION DESPAIR | A film by Steff Gruber 3
SHORT SYNOPSIS
The Swiss photographer Daniel Leuenberger lives on the edge of
society, working in Moldova with girls between 9 and 14 years old. He
has caused much controversy with the photos of his models which he
sells via the internet.
The film raises questions of how images are used and their effects in a
world increasingly dominated by the media. However, it also shows
girls’ lives in Moldova’s neighbour Transnistria, which does not officially
exist. Modelling is not just an important additional source of income for
the girls, but more importantly provides a change from the dullness of
everyday life.
PASSION DESPAIR | A film by Steff Gruber 4
SYNOPSIS
| Passion Despair
The film is a portrait of the Swiss photographer Daniel Leuenberger,
who lives in Moldova and specialises in photographing girls. Aged
between 9 and 14, most of his models come from the neighbouring
splinter state of Transnistria. For many of these girls, living in one of the
poorest countries of Europe, their work as a model is not only one of
the few ways of escaping from the dreariness of daily life – it is also the
only way of keeping their frequently fatherless families afloat.
But the portraits of the girls which Daniel makes and publishes for sale
on the internet have drawn criticism. People accuse the photographer
of immorality. These guardians of morals base their argument above all
on the fact that the majority of his customers are paedophiles.
Today the term paedophilia is associated with the stigma of criminality.
Daniel too finds himself marginalised and pushed to the edge. In the
film he talks about how he deals with forbidden feelings, about
prejudice and about his work as a photographer of girls.
The film accompanies Daniel in his daily life and work, and shows his
pictures, which make a rather harmless impression on the viewer.
But why then do the guardians of morality think these pictures are
dangerous?
The film casts a critical light on issues connected with the effects and
instrumentalisation of pictures on the internet, and reflects on the
transformation of social standards and values which has led to the
result that the sensuous beauty of young girls can no longer be shown
or viewed in public.
As well as dealing with these aspects, the film highlights the life
situation of the girl models and their families. This extended
perspective puts the issues in a larger frame.
PASSION DESPAIR | A film by Steff Gruber 5
FILM LOCATIONS
The little Republic of Moldova is situated in the southeast of Europe, in
the historic region of Bessarabia. The country became a part of the
Soviet Union in 1947. Until the early 1990s it was one of the richest of
the Soviet republics. With the collapse of Communism, Moldova –
which had suffered from a past history of permanent oppression –
acquired its long-wished-for independence. At the same time, however,
this fertile country lost the major purchaser of the products of its
plentiful vineyards and orchards. Since then its economic situation has
deteriorated progressively. Today Moldova is one of the poorest
European countries. A third of the population has to manage on one
dollar a day. People have hardly any future prospects in a country
where social structures, civil society, opportunities of education and
jobs are completely lacking. Instead, there is a flourishing trade in arms,
human beings and organs. Of the official 4.5 million inhabitants, today
only 3 million still live in the country. The others have emigrated abroad,
and support their family members at home with their earnings.
In the course of Moldova’s becoming independent, the region of
Transnistria, in the north of the country, revolted against the Moldovan
government. Ever since, the predominantly Russian and Ukrainian
population have been fighting for separation from Moldova. The selfproclaimed
Transnistrian Republic, under the government of Igor
Smirnov, is supported by Russia – which is trying in this way to hold
onto its loyal satellite state of the past. The splinter state comprises
around 550,000 inhabitants. It has its own capital, Tiraspol, as well as
an army, a parliament, a currency and passports which no one
recognises. Up to the present day the Republic of Transnistria is not
acknowledged as a state internationally, but still officially belongs to
the former Soviet republic of Moldova
.
Moldova
Transnistria
PASSION DESPAIR | A film by Steff Gruber 6
QUOTES
I never thought I'd become a photographer and make a living from it.
Also, I never thought that I would be surrounded by dozens or even
hundreds of young girls. That was never my ambition!
Daniel Leuenberger
There’s a big problem. The girls are not from Moldova. They are from
Transnistria. They have nothing. These are girls from a country that does
not exist!
Daniel Leuenberger
When I was young, I wanted to be a model.
Now I’m proud, that my daughters are fulfilling my dream.
What’s most important is that the girls enjoy what they’re doing.
Natasha Neugodnikov (mother), Bender, Transistria
In the internet you can’t exclude anyone or lay down the law.
The images aren’t vulgar, but one can look at them also differently.
Aurelia Simonova (mother), Bender, Transistria
The possibility of abusing the images exists of course, like for example
for collages or the like. I’m also concerned that friends could see such
manipulated images.
Olga (13)
You don’t have another choice as to act your sexuality out in fantasy,
because… there are no alternatives.
Daniel Leuenberger
PASSION DESPAIR | A film by Steff Gruber 7
FILM MAKER
| Steff Gruber
Steff Gruber was born in 1953 in Zurich, Switzerland.
From 1972 till 1979 he attended film lectures and courses at the
University of Zurich, ETH Zurich and F+F Zurich College of Design.
In 1976 he studied mass media philosophy at the University of Georgia
(USA) where he became the assistant of the Professor and film maker
James Herbert. Since 1978 Gruber works as an independent film
maker.
He has taught at various schools and colleges, including a post as lecturer
in film and electronic media at the Konstanz University of Applied
Sciences (1994-1997). Among his activities today, he is director of the
production company KINO.NET AG.
SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY
PASSION DESPAIR
CH 2011, 93 min., Documentary film, DigiBeta, colour/black&white
SECRET MOMENTS
CH 1991-2006, 82 min, Docudrama, DigiBeta, colour/black&white
SF / KINO.NET AG
LOCATION AFRICA
CH 1987, 65 min., Documentary film, 16mm, colour
Mit Klaus Kinski und Werner Herzog
Cine International, München / ARD / SF
FETISH & DREAMS
CH 1985, 82 min., Docudrama, 35mm, colour
Filmcoopi AG / SF
MOON IN TAURUS
CH 1980, 97 min., Docudrama, 35mm, colour
Starfilm / Paramount / ZDF „Der besondere Film“ / SF
PASSION DESPAIR | A film by Steff Gruber 8
PHOTOGRAPHY
| Jürg Hassler
Jürg Hassler was born in Zurich in 1938. While still at school, he
worked as an assistant to the sculptor Hans Josephsohn. From 1959 to
1960 he attended a photographic college in Vevey, working
subsequently for two years as a photographer and sculptor in Naples.
On returning to Switzerland he worked as an independent photographic
journalist, taking pictures for the
Tages-Anzeiger, the Berliner Illustrierte
and other periodicals. In 1968 he attended a film course at the Zurich
University of Art and Design. Since then Hassler has been working as
an independent film maker, camera man, cutter and sculptor.
SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY
as cinematographer
PASSION DESPAIR
CH 2011, Documentary film, Director: Steff Gruber
BAYIRI
Burkina Faso/CH 2011, Feature film, Director: S. Pierre Yaméogo
I WAS A SWISS BANKER
CH 2007, Feature film, Director: Thomas Imbach
LENZ
CH 2006, Feature film, Director: Thomas Imbach
DELWENDE
Burkina Faso/CH 2005, Feature film , Director: S. Pierre Yaméogo
HAPPINESS IS A WARM GUN
CH 1997, Feature film, Director: Thomas Imbach
GHETTO
CH 1994, Documentary film, Director: Thomas Imbach
WELL DONE
CH 1993, Documentary film, Director: Thomas Imbach
HINTERLAND. EINE VATER-SOHN-GESCHICHTE
CH 1990, Documentary film, Director: Dieter Gränicher
DANI, MICHI, RENATO & MAX
CH 1987, Documentary film, Director: Richard Dindo
ZÜRI BRÄNNT
CH 1980, Documentary film, Director: Patrizia Loggia, Werner Schweizer u.a.
KRAWALL
CH 1970, Documentary film, Director: Jürg Hassler
PASSION DESPAIR | A film by Steff Gruber 9
Steff Gruber about PASSION DESPAIR
I met Swiss photographer Daniel Leuenberger in Moldova some years
ago, while doing research for another film project. He wrote me that he
runs a photo studio, specialising for young girls ages 9 to14.
I remember that as a teenager I once had a poster of David Hamilton
on my wall showing a young, naked nymph. This kind of art
photography was never connected with paedophilia. All the more I was
irritated when I had to follow the development of the last couple of
years. Exhibitions of internationally accepted photographers of young
girls are increasingly seen as a threat and the photo books were even
prohibited in some countries already.
Although the photographs of Daniel have little relation to art
photography I started to get interested in his extraordinary life.
After telling Swiss friends of Daniel I noticed, that his business met
with complete rejection. Especially because of the connection with the
topic paedophilia I was warned about the social and professional
consequences were I to deal with this subject. The way the mass
media deal with the subject paedophilia in connection with acts of
violence has made its impact: I noticed that on this subject everybody
is in complete agreement.
In the summer of 2005 I travelled for the first time to Moldova to research
about Daniel and his business. One year later I started shooting.
PASSION DESPAIR | A film by Steff Gruber 10
Since I made this film, a lot of things have happened.
As a result of political pressures, access to Daniel’s photographic
pages was forbidden in many countries. In the USA his pages are
already regarded as pornography. People who download or
possess such pictures have to reckon with drastic fines or
imprisonment. The new sexual offences legislation in Germany
prescribes similar penalties.
With Daniel’s business coming to an end, the models are no longer
able to work and lose an important source of income.
Our increasing sensitivity on the subject of paedophilia is in large
part due to the mass media. But it is the mass media themselves
which use paedophilia as a source of profit, and encourage these
dangerous developments for lack of discrimination in the way they
are presented. This lends support to conservative groups, who use
the hysteria about paedophilia in order to enforce a repressive
sexual morality.
Not only has this triggered a worldwide witchhunt against anyone
suspected of paedophilia – it has also led to a new idea of morality
coming to be accepted, with implications for many areas of life.
In my opinion Daniel’s photos are harmless. They do not represent
any kind of danger or show girls being abused.
I wouldn’t dispute the fact that there are people whose fantasies are
stimulated by these pictures. Which is more dangerous – private
fantasies, or a society that tries to forbid them?
Out of a vague concern about encouraging criminality, girls’ bodies
may no longer be shown today. And what is more, the beauty and
sensuous radiance of young girls is no longer a legitimate object of
perception.
A critical examination of these issues is not only regarded as
undesirable – it is one of the most powerful social taboos today.
PASSION DESPAIR | A film by Steff Gruber 11
ABOUT THE FILM TOPIC
Nabokov describes the particular attraction of girls between the age
of nine and fourteen in his world-famous novel
The nymphs, as he calls them, have appeared in tales from throughout
the world since time immemorial. The roots of this concept go back to
the ancient world. These natural spirits or tiny goddesses were symbols
and guardians of nature, who were said to have not immortality, but
eternal youth. The nymphs also had an angelic appearance and alluring
powers of attraction, but never actually satisfied the interest they
awakened.
The subject of fascination for young girls can be traced right back in
cultural history. It was not only in the Middle Ages that they believed that
adolescent girls represented a kind of fountain of youth for the ageing
man. You will also find this image in the works of Goethe, for example.
The centuries-old myth of nymphs, fairies and elves, who spring from the
woods and waters in the shape of young girls to entrance humans, was
most recently brought back to life in Nabokov‘s novel
the love of Humbert, a 37-year-old professor of literature, for a 12-yearold
school girl. Apart from this story, there are many stories in early
literature which tell of love between grown men and young girls. Many
years before Nabokov, Curd Goetz wrote the novella
very similar story. And grown men become enchanted by girls between
childhood and womanhood in many of the novels by Nobel Prize-winning
Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
In photography, the American Jock Sturges succeeds in expressing the
projection of dreams and fantasy in an artistic way. He uses his elves to
create a connection between myth, fiction and reality, building a bridge
for the observer back into to the past, when the sensual beauty of young
Lolita.Lolita. It is aboutTatjana, telling a
Vladimir Nabokov
Cultural history
Wolfgang Johann Goethe
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Photography
PASSION DESPAIR | A film by Steff Gruber 12
girls was not yet associated with the concepts of violence and
criminality.
These are examples of art forms in literature, film and photography.
Fiction - which has nothing whatsoever to do with monstrous
perversion, such as the acts committed by the Belgian murderer
Dutroux or the abduction of Natascha Kampusch.
And yet these two areas are becoming increasingly confused: this is
demonstrated by the development and various applications of the
concept of paedophilia.
Although doctors distinguish between the two terms paedophilic
and paedosexual, no distinction is made between the two in
common parlance. These days, both are understood to be sexual
activity between an adult and a child or young person.
This change in attitude is becoming more and more distinct in the
art and literature industry. Photographers who dedicate themselves
to the subject of young girls have great difficulty publishing their
books or holding exhibitions. In the USA, especially, the pressure on
photographers showing nude pictures of children and young people
increased rapidly by the end of the 1990s. Well-known artists such
as Jock Sturges, Nan Goldin and Sally Mann were being accused of
child pornography. But in the background, the message of the work
was still there: capturing dreams, naturalness, and innocence.
The erotic originally denoted the sensual and spiritual attraction to a
person, and was defined according to Plato through wish and
desire. But since Sigmund Freud, the erotic has been increasingly
sexualised.
In her book
erotic has been killed by pornography.
Today’s all-pervasive pornography has reduced the erotic to the
sexual act. This development from passive desire to sexual activity
also corresponds to the change in the concept of paedophilia.
Not only are young people not allowed to have erotic feelings –
adults are seen as suspect if they feel this way about young people.
Eroticism has been displaced by sexuality.
This trend is clear from the paradoxical demands that have been made
in some European countries for the age for the right to vote to be
reduced to 16, but for the age of sexual self-determination to be raised
to 18.
As Jean-Christoph Ammann finds, “the boundary between personal and
instrumentalised pictures is frequently blurred” today. As a result,
pictures are increasingly attracting criticism which would hardly have
upset anybody a few years ago. FKK [Free Body Culture] magazines
used to be on sale at kiosks everywhere, for example, but they are no
longer seen today.
Alice im Männerland, Alice Schwarzer states that the
Terms paedophilic and
paedosexual
Change in attitude
Art
Sexualisation of eroticism
Alice Schwarzer
Jean-Christoph Ammann
Instrumentalisation of
images
PASSION DESPAIR | A film by Steff Gruber 13
But history shows that the harmless and dangerous qualities of the
various media are not the only things under interpretation. Burning books
was not the only way of suppressing ideas - the rejection of iconic imagery
of the Old Testament, referred to by iconoclasts during the 16th
Reformation is an example of this.
Experts disagree as to whether pictures of young girls lead to sexual
assault or whether they may have a preventive effect instead,
because they satisfy fantasies.
In our society, where the glorification of violence in films and video
games is a business worth millions, we must ask ourselves the
question about the effect images have sooner or later.
In his book
points to three empirical studies which have demonstrated
experimentally that many men who are not paedophiles also respond to
the charms of young girls. So if these charms are not just a recurrent
theme in art, but are also systematically used for advertising purposes,
there is no reason why we should be surprised.
It is estimated, however, that only a very small percentage of all men
are paedophiles. But, as with other sexual preferences, experts can
only speculate on the causes of paedophilia. On the other hand,
specialists agree in one respect: there is no cure for paedophilia.
The only way of dealing with such a sexual orientation is the “total
life-long control of behaviour”, says Prof. Dr. Klaus M. Beier, head of
the Institute of Sexology and Sexual Medicine at Berlin’s Charité
hospital.
Unlike other people, where we naturally accept that they know how
to manage their fantasies, paedophiles are not trusted to do so.
The perception and handling of images have long since been
undergoing change. Digitalisation and the Internet have
fundamentally changed the way images are received. Individual
morality also plays a strong role.
The same image can elicit different responses, ranging from a
metaphysical experience, to complete disinterest, to sexual desire.
In general, a metaphysical experience is ascribed to art while sexual
desire is assigned to pornography.
The judgment as to what constitutes pornography or obscenity is
dependent on the culture, the period and the individual. The perception of
the object is always influenced by context. Digitalisation and the internet
have caused fundamental changes in the reception of pictures. A picture
of a girl seen anonymous on the internet may have quite a different effect
from the same image viewed in a photo album.
But true pornography is not within the picture itself, but in the eye of
the beholder.
Wirbelsturm Lolita [Hurricane Lolita], Dieter E. Zimmer
Iconoclasm
Impact of images
Dieter E. Zimmer
Experts
Klaus M. Beier
Perception of images
PASSION DESPAIR | A film by Steff Gruber 14
CONTACTS
Production | Distribution | World Sales
KINO.NET AG
Hafnerstr. 60 | CH 8005 Zurich
phone ++41 44 272 79 00 | fax ++41 44 272 80 73
email kino@kino.net | www.kino.net
PRESS SERVICE
KINO.NET AG
Hafnerstr. 60 | CH 8005 Zurich
phone ++41 44 272 79 00 | fax ++41 44 272 80 73
email diana.baermann@kino.net
www.passion-despair.com 
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