Balancing Authenticity and Ethics: Portraying Trauma and Violence in TV Series
A distinguished panel of female creators and producers gathered at the Berlinale Series Market (EFM) to discuss one of the most challenging aspects of modern storytelling: depicting trauma and violence in TV series without exploiting the subject matter or re-traumatising viewers.
The Filmmaker’s Dilemma: To Show or Not to Show
At the heart of the conversation was the deeply personal creative decision each filmmaker faces: how much to show and what purpose that showing serves. This dilemma was crystallised in an encounter shared by producer Solmaz Azizi, whose team made the conscious decision not to explicitly depict a rape scene in their series “Anoyme.”
“We had a couple of premieres already and we had mostly female moderators,” Azizi explained. “The only male moderator that we had asked us or implied that maybe the rape didn’t even happen. And it never even occurred to us to think about that.”
This revealing anecdote struck at a profound truth about representation: the absence of visual “proof” can sometimes lead to doubt about the very occurrence of trauma. “It says a lot that just because you don’t show something, maybe it didn’t happen,” Azizi reflected, highlighting how this single interaction validated what many survivors face in reality—the burden of proving their experiences.
For Estonian director Doris Tääker, the decision to include explicit scenes in “My Dear Mother” came from a deeply personal place, especially as she had recently become a mother herself. “When I was reading about child psychology, I understood that the bond that a mother and daughter have is very, very precious, but also the way the mother treats the kid indicates to her how the whole world can treat her,” she shared, revealing how her own life experience informed her artistic choices.
The Personal Connection to the Material
The panel revealed how their own experiences shaped their approach to difficult material. Marika Makaroff was particularly candid: “For years, because I have been in abusive relationship, I was kind of ashamed. I didn’t want to talk about that. And then I suddenly read this book about abusive relationships. And I understood that the mental abuse, the physical abuse, follows the mental abuse.”
This personal revelation transformed her perspective: “I could understand that in fact, all relationships are different, but the abusive relationships had certain patterns that I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is like from my life.’ And that’s why I wanted to make a series where if I can help someone to detect the patterns and the roots.”
For Makaroff, creating her series became a form of healing and education. She structured the narrative to build understanding before shocking the audience: “The physical violence comes in the last episode, so that you understand that you are waiting for that nearly, because the situation in that relationship is dreadful.”
The Emotional Toll of Creation
The filmmakers also spoke candidly about the emotional impact of creating these works. Tääker described creating a deliberate emotional sanctuary on set: “I told the whole crew that now we’re going into a very dark story. Let’s keep it super light on set. Let’s, you know, humor, jokes, everything… But when the camera rolls, we go back into the deep and serious and dark story.”
Makaroff shared how deeply the actors immersed themselves: “After the shootings, we needed to really kind of debrief and talk with both of the cast members, but also the team, just to kind of get it off our system, because it was so powerful.”
Azizi’s team took extraordinary measures to prepare for potential backlash to their storytelling choices: “We did talk about it a lot. We had like a session with a PR professional beforehand to discuss how it could backlash… and also put together like an entire brief for the team and the casting crew on how you should talk about certain topics and which narratives or wordings to avoid.”
Finding Strength in Trauma Narratives
One of the most powerful insights came when Tääker described a scene where her protagonist experiences horrific sexual violence, is left for dead, then simply gets up and keeps walking: “There are different kind of victims. There are victims who experience it for the first time. And then in Alina’s case, our main character’s case, she has always experienced that. So what do you do if you have always experienced that? You just get your scrape yourself up again and just continue walking. And it’s weirdly strong and completely sad at the same time.”
This ability to find strength within trauma narratives—to show not just victimization but resilience—emerged as a key element in creating stories that resonate beyond mere exploitation. As Fabrizia Palazzo noted about the protagonist in “Querer,” who reports her husband after 30 years of abuse: “She managed to take back her life. And I think that this was the goal.”
The conversation revealed how deeply personal these creative choices are for filmmakers, especially those who bring their own lived experiences to the material. Their thoughtful approaches demonstrate that depicting trauma isn’t simply about what is shown or not shown, but about the deeper truth each creator is working to illuminate—and the healing they hope their work might inspire in others.
Editor in Chief of Ikon London Magazine, journalist, film producer and founder of The DAFTA Film Awards (The DAFTAs).
