H2O Motion Pictures presents a Hunnia Filmstudio and EuroArts Filmed Entertainment GmbH Production a film by Janos Szasz. Ulrich Thomsen Kirsti Stubo OPIUM - Diary of a Madwoman Zsolt Laszlo Gyongyver Bognar/ Eniko Borcsok costume designer Janos Breckl production designer Tibor Lazar special design by Geza Szollosi music by Johann Jonhannsson Biosphere Beethoven sound Manuel Laval Matthias Schwab Istvan Sipos cinematographer Tibor Mathe HSC editor Anna Kornis HSE line producers Andrea Kormos Erika Tarr co producers Csaba Csetenyi Tibor Krsko Michael Reuter Zsolt Valkony Tracy Brimm Kate Myers executive producers Bernd Hellthaler Heiko Burkardsmaier Lacia Kornylo screenplay by Janos Szasz Andras Szeker based on the works of Geza Csath produced by Pal Sandor Andras Hamori directed by Janos Szasz www.fotogyar.com

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www.h2omotionpictures.com [email protected] OPIUM is directed by Janos Szasz whose previous films include WOYZECK and THE WITMAN BOYS.

WOYZECK won over twenty international prizes including the Felix Prize (for Best Young European Film of the Year) and the Grand Prix at the Chicago, Strasbourg, Thessaloniki and Budapest Film Festivals. The WITMAN BOYS premiered as Official Selection – Un Certain Regard at the Cannes International Film Festival. Both WOYZECK and THE WITMAN BOYS were Academy Award contenders for best foreign language film.

Szasz also wrote and directed the documentary EYES OF THE HOLOCAUST for Steven Spielberg’s series BROKEN SILENCE.

A resident director of the Boston Repertory Theatre and the Oslo National Theatre, Janos Szasz was also Director of the Institute of Advanced Theatre training at Harvard University.

At the 1998 Sundance Film Festival Janos Szasz was selected as one of Daily Variety’s “Top Upcoming Directors to Watch”.

OPIUM - Diary of a Madwoman traces psychiatrist Josef her almost psychic insight, and her prolific writing which Brenner’s Faustian pact. contrasts sharply to his own waning creativity.

OPIUM chronicles the life of Doctor Brenner (Ulrich Thomsen An illicit bond between doctor and patient leads to a destructive of /CELEBRATION, KINGDOM OF HEAVEN), whose and taboo meeting of body and mind as Brenner finds in OPIUM stars Ulrich Thomsen who came to international stardom with the reputation for both his literary work and his breakthrough Gizella the voice he has lost as a writer. Realizing that his leading role in ’s DOGMA-sensation, FESTEN/CELEBRATION. approach to working with the mentally ill is compromised own insatiable appetite for knowledge and power cannot by his consuming morphine habit and sexual addiction. co-exist with his desire and lust for Gizella, he is forced to Successfully traversing the worlds of independent European film and Hollywood make a choice which will cost her her last tenuous hold blockbusters, Ulrich starred in Ridley Scott’s KINGDOM OF HEAVEN and portrayed Gradually ostracized by his more mainstream colleagues, on sanity and ultimately her life. the villain opposite Pierce Brosnan’s James Bond in THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH, Brenner takes up a new post at an isolated mental asylum while working with auteur directors (BROTHERS), Anders Thomas where he develops a growing obsession with his patient OPIUM is based on the infamous diaries of Geza Csath, Jensen (ADAM’S APPLE), Sandra Nettelbeck (BELLA MARTHA), Kathryn Bigelow Gizella (Kirsti Stubo)./ Brenner is captivated by her intelligence, a contemporary of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. (THE WEIGHT OF WATER) and Chen Kaige (KILLING ME SOFTLY).