"There are people who can live with paedophilic tendencies without harming anyone," say the authors of Dogs Off Limits, a film that breaks down stereotypes and opens up a taboo subject with empathy
The film Dogs are forbidden to enter opens up a difficult topic that is rarely seen in world cinema, yet its creators are not afraid to tackle it with extraordinary sensitivity and depth. In their film, director Steve Bache and screenwriter Stephan Kämpf follow 15-year-old Gabe, whose inner world begins to crumble the moment he realises he is attracted to an 8-year-old boy. While he tries to hide his secret from the world around him, he finds refuge in an online chat room with a grown man - but he abuses his trust. The filmmakers draw the viewer into an uncompromising but deeply human story about guilt, shame and the need for understanding. A drama that avoids sensationalism, it becomes a bold statement about the limits of desire, responsibility and the power of empathy. Steve Bache and Stephan Kämpf talk to LUI about why they chose such a bold theme, how the work with the child actors went and what the audience should take away from the film.
Dogs Off-limits is your feature debut, which deals with the issue of paedophilia. What brought you to such a complex and challenging topic?
Steve: I've wanted to tell a story about people with paedophilic tendencies for a long time because I was interested in how society views them. But for a long time I didn't know what specific story I could tell because there are only a few films that deal with this subject and I didn't want to copy any of them. About six years ago I came across an article in a German magazine about a 15-year-old boy who entered therapy.
I realized at that moment that every person with these tendencies has to go through a point where they realize, "Damn, what is happening to me?" It was fascinating to watch a teenager struggle not only with his own puberty, but with this problem.
I started doing research and put out a call looking for someone who would be willing to talk openly about their story. Shortly thereafter, a 15-year-old boy wrote to me anonymously offering to share his own experience. He told me that he had met a paedophile on the darknet and that they had developed a very strange relationship - the older man had sexually abused him, but the younger man still wanted to talk to him about his experiences. It was a strange and disturbing relationship between two people.
So the story was based on reality?
Steve: Yes, the film is based on true events. At that point I felt I needed to talk about it from my own perspective as well, and that's when I met Stefan. Together we started to develop the story.
We stayed in contact with the boy for about one or two years, and Stefan also communicated with him. After a while, we tried again to convince him to end the relationship with the older man. A year later he wrote to us saying that he had not done so, but one day the police turned up at his door because the older man had been arrested by the police and they had found the boy's contact details on his phone. They believed he was the victim and wanted him to testify against the "mentor." But he refused because he feared the man would reveal his secret.
That's when we realized that the story before us was so powerful and multi-layered that we simply had to tell it.
Paedophilia is one of the most complex and sensitive subjects that can be portrayed in film. What did you learn about this topic during your research?
Stephen: We talked to a lot of people, and the first big discovery for us was that there are people who have managed to learn to live with their paedophilic tendencies and not only don't hurt anyone, but have managed to create a way of coping without hating themselves or living in constant shame and isolation. That was a major realization for us. These people often have friends who know about it, and they are able to lead pretty normal lives without becoming a threat to others. It was therefore interesting to investigate what conditions lead to someone actually becoming a perpetrator. Paedophilia alone is not enough to do this - other factors such as depression or severe stress also play a role.
We also found from reading books and talking to experts that most cases of sexual abuse are not committed by people who are paedophiles in the clinical sense. They do form part of the perpetrators, but a large number of abusers have other motives - for example, the need to exert power over the victim or to vent their own frustration.
Your film makes a clear distinction between having certain desires and actually acting on them. Why was it important for you to emphasize this boundary?
Stephen: We were fascinated by the question of guilt itself. Where does it begin? Is one guilty just by having a certain fantasy? And when does it become a crime? Even from a legal point of view, this line is extremely vague and varies from state to state. In Germany, for example, the drawings themselves can be judged as child pornography - the line is therefore very thin. Elsewhere, it is defined differently. It was this ambiguity that was key for us: where does the guilt really begin?
In the film, two storylines intertwine - 15-year-old Gabo falls in love with his classmate's 8-year-old brother, and at the same time establishes a sexual relationship with an older man. But purely by definition, the second case is not really about pedophilia, because Gabo is fifteen, or is he?
Steve: Technically, no, in this case it's hebephilia, that's how this type of attraction is referred to. But it's important to add that it's still clearly abuse. In the film, Gabo is raped - an older man has sex with him against his will. Gabo tells him "no", but he goes ahead anyway. Thus, from a legal and moral point of view, it is nothing more than abuse, even though it does not technically fall under paedophilia, but just under hebephilia. At the same time, there is a power dynamic similar to that of paedophilia - the older man clearly has the upper hand over the younger.
How did you approach the depiction of sexual tension and abuse without crossing ethical boundaries, especially when one of the actors was a minor?
Steve: Generally it wasn't a big deal - the lead actor who portrayed Gabe was 21 at the time of filming. We talked a lot about the role, we discussed his character and the scenes in detail early on in the preparation. Thanks to this, he got into the role very quickly and no ethical problems arose.
But we approached the character of eight-year-old Sami differently. Before shooting, we had several meetings with his parents and with a film psychologist, not a clinical psychologist, but a specialist in working with child actors. This boy had already had the experience of a German thriller series, where they didn't explain to him what the story was about - he was only given individual scenes. It turned out that this was actually the best approach for the child: focusing purely on the acting and not addressing the context of the story.
We took the same approach this time, on the recommendation of the parents and the psychologist. Sami didn't know what the theme of the whole film was - his scenes weren't really related to it at all. This allowed him to be natural, to just "play the child" without carrying the weight of the main story. It was much easier for him and there was never any problem with it.
Why did you decide to tell the whole story through the eyes of a teenage boy trying to understand himself?
Stephen: Because it's a perspective that we either don't see at all or very rarely see in movies. We wanted to show the subject in a different way, from an angle that would surprise the viewer. We thought for a long time about what kind of story we wanted to tell, and in the end we thought that a film only makes sense if it brings something to the table that hasn't been there before.
At the same time, we set the story within the framework of the coming-of-age genre, which makes it more accessible to the audience. There are familiar coming-of-age moments - a bunch of friends, playing on a console in the living room - but the plot gradually takes a completely different direction than is usual for films like this.
Moreover, adolescence is the time when one first realises that one is different in some ways. It is a crucial moment that can have a profound effect on the rest of one's life. So we wanted to tell a story where the viewer is not sure where the character's life will go - it can end badly, but it can also take a turn for the better. We wanted there to be some hope even in the uncertainty.
Steve: The second reason was also a certain philosophical level. When a story is told about an adult with paedophilic tendencies, the viewer usually immediately condemns him - no matter what he says or how he behaves. But if you offer the same perspective through a teenager whom society perceives as innocent, a very different contrast emerges: innocence on the one hand and "flawed" desire on the other. It was this contradiction that interested us immensely.
Many people might reject a film with such a theme just because of its content. Weren't you worried that it would be difficult to get support or distributors?
Steve: Not really. When we started the story, we just thought, let's see where it takes us and what comes out of it. But when we found out that we had in our hands the real story of a 15-year-old boy we had been in contact with, we realised how extremely powerful and multi-layered this material is.
It was so compelling that we didn't even think about how people would react to it. We ourselves were both shocked and fascinated by it, and felt we had to tell it - precisely because of its contradictions and the questions it raises. So no, we didn't address whether the film would be made. Rather, we knew it just had to be made.
How are audiences reacting to the film so far?
Steve: The reactions have been very positive in general. We've struggled to get the film out there - to get it into festivals or to get it in front of audiences at all - but where it has screened, people have received it well. Audiences usually understand what the film is trying to convey and appreciate that the subject matter is not presented sensationally but with understanding. That has been our main experience so far.
Stephen: I'd also like to add something that's also important given that we're doing this interview for a queer magazine: pedophilia obviously doesn't fall under the queer or LGBT+ umbrella. They are two completely different things. Rather, we're at this festival because the film touches on the topic of "grooming" - that is, the manipulation of a young person, which is something that many young queer people can identify with. The main character Gabo lives with a big secret that he can't tell anyone, and this makes him extremely vulnerable.
This is a situation I've experienced myself - being a queer teenager who is afraid to confide. So part of the story is actually my personal experience. That's why it's important for us to emphasize that while some of the feelings or motives may be similar, queer identity and pedophilic tendencies are in no way related. But unfortunately, we often see that the far right tries to deliberately blur this very line and identify both.
Is there anything you would like the audience to take away from the film?
Steve: I certainly do. I personally hope that viewers realize that there are people with pedophilic tendencies who are really trying to live in a way that doesn't hurt anyone. They are aware that they have some danger in them because their desire is directed towards something that is forbidden - and rightly forbidden.
But it is a hugely internally contradictory situation. Imagine if you said to yourself, "I must never again touch a woman or be in intimate contact with her." That would be terrible, wouldn't it? That contradiction is what we want to show the audience - that these are people who have to live with that knowledge. And maybe we shouldn't immediately exclude them from our environment if they confide in someone like that.
Especially families, siblings and friends shouldn't react in such a situation with condemnation, but rather with understanding and trying to help so that the person doesn't get depressed and end up as a perpetrator.
Stephen: Yes, exactly. And I think we also reached people who are dealing with this problem themselves with the film. Steve even got two emails from young men who sought professional help after watching the film. That meant a lot to us.
Do you plan to come up with a similar theme in the future?
Steve: Not right away. We may revisit the topic at some point in the future - perhaps through another character with similar tendencies, or in the broader context of sexual violence. But right now I feel the need to move on. It's an extremely difficult and exhausting topic, so I'm looking forward to taking a break from such challenging stories for a while and discovering something new.
