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Actress Alina Levshin: “You have to get help”
Photo: Jens Kalaene/dpa
Actress Alina Levshin has reported experiencing sexual violence in the film industry.
»I remember saying no several times.
And I also remember how it was ignored again and again.
I simply wasn’t heard,” the 39-year-old Berliner told the magazine “Bunte”.
As an artist, she has a responsibility to “talk about such topics.”
She told Bild that the perpetrator was a “person from the industry” whose name she did not want to name.
»Do you know what I believe?
If I do that, it wouldn't do much good.
This person would still get his job because he is very, very likeable. She is afraid that others would doubt her information.
She was physically, sexually abused and “repressed this traumatic experience for a long period of time,” presumably out of self-protection.
Levshin is now planning a short film called “You Never Know” on the subject of sexual violence and is collecting funds for it.
It's not about them, but the goal is to initiate a new debate: "I want people to question themselves a lot more, I want to inspire and encourage other people affected to defend themselves, to set clear boundaries, to open their mouths.
You have to get help and seek dialogue.
If you're left to your own devices, you won't get anywhere in a situation like this and will instead become depressed.
And that shouldn’t be allowed to happen.”
Alina Levshin was awarded the German Television Prize in 2010 for her role as a forced prostitute in the series “In the Face of Crime”.
In the feature film “Warrior” (2011) the actress played a neo-Nazi girl.
At times she also played in the Erfurt “Tatort”.
On March 6th she can be seen on Erste in the political thriller “Am Abgrund”.