Premiere of original composition by Samuel Gfeller

Based on authentic historical court documents, Dreyer’s Passion de Jeanne d’Arc recounts the trial of Saint Joan in the manner of a Greek tragedy: the inquest, the torture, the forced confession, the shaving of the head and the burning at the stake. The film is dominated by soberly arranged subheadings and close ups of faces without make-up. The silent, but literally spoken dialogues are meant to capture the “inner drama of the human soul” and “show the truth, the human truth” through an utmost concentration of emotions, as Dreyer explained.