''Unterwerfung'' ("submission") is a 2018

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

television

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

directed by Titus Selge and starring

Edgar Selge Edgar Selge (born 27 March 1948) is a German actor and writer. Selge was born in Brilon in 1948, the son of a prison warden, grew up in Herford Herford (; ) is a town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, located in the lowlands between the hill ...

. It is based on the 2015 novel ''

Submission Deference (also called submission or passivity) is the condition of submitting to the espoused, legitimate influence of one's superior or superiors. Deference implies a yielding or submitting to the judgment of a recognized superior, out of re ...

'' by

Michel Houellebecq Michel Houellebecq (; born Michel Thomas on 26 February 1956) is a French author of novels, poems, and essays, as well as an occasional actor, filmmaker, and singer. His first book was a biographical essay on the horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. H ...

and a German stage adaptation of the novel.

Cast

as François *

Matthias Brandt Matthias Brandt (born 7 October 1961) is a German actor and audiobook narrator. He has appeared in more than seventy films since 1989. Early life Brandt was born in West Berlin. He is the youngest of the three sons of the former German Chancel ...

as Rediger *

Alina Levshin Alina Levshin (born September 10, 1984) is a German-Ukrainian actress. She moved with her parents from the Soviet Union to Germany when she was six.Jörg Thomann''Sie kann auch anders.''In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, 15 Januar 2012 ...

as Myriam * André Jung as Alain Tanneur *

Florian Stetter Florian Stetter (born August 2, 1977) is a German actor. Awards References External links * {{DEFAULTSORT:Stetter, Florian 20th-century German male actors 1977 births German male film actors Male actors from Munich Living people< ...

as Godefroy Lempereur * Bettina Stucky as Marie Francois Tanneur * Michael Wittenborn as Walter Zobel * Valerie Koch as Alice *

Jean-Yves Berteloot Jean-Yves Berteloot (; born 27 August 1958) is a French actor. Theater Filmography References External links * {{DEFAULTSORT:Berteloot, Jean-Yves 1958 births Living people People from Saint-Omer Male actors from Hauts-de-France ...

as Steve

Production

The film was produced by

Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (; "Berlin-Brandenburg Broadcasting"), commonly shortened to RBB (; stylized as rbb), is an institution under public law (national broadcaster) for the Germany, German states of Berlin and Brandenburg, based in Berlin and Potsdam. RBB was estab ...

. The screenplay by Titus Selge is based on

's 2015 novel ''

'' and

Karin Beier Karin Beier (born 1965 in Cologne) is a German theatre director. Biography After studying English in Cologne, Karin Beier moved into theatre. She established an English language theatre and staged Shakespeare plays in their source language. Th ...

's stage monologue based on the novel.

who performed the monologue at the

Deutsches Schauspielhaus The Deutsches Schauspielhaus, sometimes referred to as the Hamburg Schauspielhaus or Hamburg Theatre, is a theatre in the St. Georg, Hamburg, St. Georg quarter of the city of Hamburg, Germany History The Deutsches Schauspielhaus was co-foun ...

in Hamburg also stars in the film. The film combines conventional film scenes with excerpts from the monologue. The theatre scenes were recorded in July 2017 while principal photography for the rest of the film began on 10 October 2017, with scenes shot in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

and

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

Release

The film premiered on ARD on 6 June 2018.

Reviews

The ''

Süddeutsche Zeitung The ''Süddeutsche Zeitung'' (; ), published in Munich, Bavaria, is one of the largest and most influential daily newspapers in Germany. The tone of ''SZ'' is mainly described as centre-left, liberal, social-liberal, progressive-liberal, and ...

'' called the adaptation "remarkable."

References

External links

* 2018 films 2018 television films Films based on French novels Films based on works by Michel Houellebecq Films set in 2022 Films set in Paris Films shot in Berlin Films shot in Paris German films based on plays German drama television films Films based on adaptations Films based on science fiction novels 2010s German-language films 2010s German films Das Erste original programming {{2010s-Germany-film-stub