Leonie, Actress and Spy

Annette Apon might have made her fiction feature debut only in 1982 with her Virginia Woolf adaptation, The Waves, but she had been an active figure in Dutch cinema culture since attending film academy. As a co-founder of film magazine Skrien in 1968, and the film collective Amsterdams Stadsjournaal in 1974, and as a writer, she has the voice of an activist. Multi-faceted and energetic, a bit maybe like the protagonists of her recent works: Droom en daad - Het zoeken van Henriëtte Roland Holst (2012), Ik wil gelukkig zijn. Fien de la Mar (1898-1965) (2016), and now Leonie, actrice en spionne. Gertrud Franziska Pütz, better known as Leonie Brandt, is one of the most mysterious characters of 20th-century Netherlands' history. A German-born, Dutch-by-marriage actress and playwright who worked for the Dutch secret service and then also for the Nazis... But who was Leonie really? Or: Is there such a thing as a life that is 'real'? (International Film Festival Rotterdam)