Requiem

Requiem is a German drama set in the 1970s in a small town in southern Germany. Michaela Klingler, 21, has grown up in a strictly Catholic household with a kind but weak father and a cold, controlling mother. Despite years of living with epilepsy, she leaves home to study at university, where she tastes independence for the first time and forms a friendship with Hanna and a tentative romance with Stefan. Her seizures return, more severe than before, accompanied by voices and disturbing visions that she interprets as demonic. Frightened of being sent back to her family, she turns to a priest, who becomes convinced she is possessed and arranges an exorcism, while her friends urge her toward psychiatric care.

The film is directed by Hans-Christian Schmid, who also produced it from a screenplay by Bernd Lange. It is his fourth feature, following It's a Jungle Out There, 23 and Crazy. Sandra Hüller plays Michaela, with Burghart Klaußner and Imogen Kogge as her parents, Anna Blomeier as Hanna, Nicholas Reinke as Stefan and Walter Schmidinger as Gerhart Landauer.

Released in 2006, the film runs 92 minutes and was produced in Germany with backing from WDR, ARTE, BR and SWR. On IMDb it holds a rating of 6.8 from roughly 6,900 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 6.6 from 127 votes. A critics' rating of 7.4 from 35 reviews places it somewhat above the audience scores.