How sure can a person be of themselves? This is the central question of Dominik Graf’s new documentary essay. Based on Anatol Regnier’s eponymous book, this film deals with artists’ destinies and the immediate reality of the Nazi era. What was it like to live in a dictatorship?

In Jeder schreibt für sich allein, we encounter the biographies of very well-known authors, each of whom lived extremely individual ambivalences. For example, Gottfried Benn and Erich Kästner, who were, at the same time, banned from writing to the Nazis, but repeatedly supported them in different ways. Or Ina Seidel, bestselling author and ardent Hitler fan, who was in a secret same-sex relationship. 

Jeder schreibt für sich allein is a film that highlights that the temptation of clarity is often the greatest stupidity.