A sombre and serious film that goes out of its way to underplay its sensational story. Based on real events, this is the same tale that was the basis of The Exorcism of Emily Rose, a freer US adaptation of a shocking tale which came out a year earlier. On the face of it, Requiem is drab, with its bleached colours and dull Bavarian town that its heroine escapes to take up a university place and its workaday handheld camerawork. But gradually, with the help of a skilful and unusual performance by Sandra Hülle, and astute direction by Bavarian Hans-Christian Schmidit, it grips you.

The central character is an epileptic girl who defies the best efforts of science and religion to sort her out and the film suggests the limitations of both while taking the side of neither in her struggle for control, while also preseting a very Philip Larkin pair of parents. The film's only touch of sensation comes in its shocking end footnote. Hüller won a number of awards including the prestigious Berlin silver bear. This is one of a number of strong German films of recent years and the diversity is striking: like Requiem, the likes of Run, Lola, Run, Good Bye Lenin, Head-On and Downfall are all highly distinctive, individual and by different directors.