Shock Head Soul - Production & Contact Info

Shock Head Soul (2011)
86 min | Documentary, Biography

Shock Head Soul (2011)

86 min | Documentary, Biography

In 1903 Daniel Paul Schreber published the most celebrated autobiography of madness 'from the inside' ever written. Shock Head Soul interleaves documentary interviews, fictional re-construction and CGI animation to portray his story. ...See moreIn 1903 Daniel Paul Schreber published the most celebrated autobiography of madness 'from the inside' ever written. Shock Head Soul interleaves documentary interviews, fictional re-construction and CGI animation to portray his story. Daniel Paul Schreber was a successful lawyer who, in 1893, started to receive messages from God via a Writing Down Machine that spanned the cosmos. He spent the next 9 years confined to an asylum: tortured by delusions of cosmic control, suffering the belief that he was shifting gender and that his body was subjected to cruel 'miracles'. Schreber believed that only his submission to God's plan to change him into a woman would save the world. During his confinement he wrote Memoirs of My Nervous Illness, which has earned him lasting fame as an outsider artist, it allowed him to argue that that his belief system was a matter of religious freedom and that he was sane enough to return to society. Running as a recurrent motif through the film is an imaginary Writing Down Machine inspired by both the delusory writing down systems envisioned by Schreber and also the Hansen Writing Ball. This early visionary design for a typewriter is famous because Nietzsche used such a machine to compose reflections on the relationship between writing and technology. The film's mix of forms explores the borderline between religious vision and deluded fanaticism, and the intimate link between family secrets, psychiatric diagnosis, and our societal understanding of mental illness. Written by Submarine See less

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Cast	+ Add Cast
11 cast members

Name	Known for
Hugo Koolschijn Daniel Paul Schreber Daniel Paul Schreber See fewer	Soldier of Orange (1977)
Anniek Pheifer Sabine Schreber Sabine Schreber See fewer	Aanmodderfakker (2014)
Thom Hoffman Dr. Flechsig Dr. Flechsig See fewer	Black Book (2006)
Jochum ten Haaf Dr. Tauscher Dr. Tauscher See fewer	Dunkirk (2017)
Ian Christie Self Self See fewer	The Last Machine (1995)
Eileen Joyce Self Self See fewer	Shock Head Soul (2011)
Roger Kennedy Self Self See fewer	Shock Head Soul (2011)
Chris Nietvelt Actress Actress See fewer	Red Light (I) (2020)
Clive Robinson Self Self See fewer	The Last Projectionist (2011)
Andrea Sabbadini Self Self See fewer	Inside the Container Crypt (2007)
Paul Williams Self Self See fewer	Shock Head Soul (2011)