The Stranger in Me

Rebecca and Julian are expecting their first child and both are happy in the waiting. The baby is born healthy, but the unconditional love Rebecca expected does not arrive; the child in her arms is a stranger to her. As the days pass she sees that she cannot meet what motherhood asks of her, she cannot say this to anyone, not even to Julian, and she closes further and further in on herself. At one point she realises she has become a danger to her own child. The film treats postnatal depression not in the language of blame but from inside the woman, and it also shows how late the people around her see it. Susanne Wolff and Johann von Bülow appear in Emily Atef’s ninety nine minute production, completed in 2008.