Based on Daniela Krien’s novel, the film is set in the summer of 1990, shortly after the fall of the Berlin wall, in the countryside of former East Germany.

Marlene Burow plays Maria, who is about to turn 19, lives with her boyfriend at his parents’ farm. She engages into a passionate and lustful affair with Henner (Felix Kramer), a reclusive neighbor who is twice her age.

Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything could be made due to the birth of the #Metoo movement, which she describes as “revolutionary.”

“(#Metoo) is giving us more possibilities because finally there’s a light shone on the fact that we have not been allowed to tell our perspectives. And I mean, every female perspective, even female perspectives that are not politically correct in the global context,” she says.

She read the book 10 years ago and managed to obtain the rights, which were owned by someone else. “I was fascinated about the perspective of the young woman, her sexual desires, the fact that she was emancipated from what society tells her she should do because she just wants to go there,” Atef says.

“I don’t see why we are not as women allowed to show that even though it’s with an older guy — who cares? This is what she wants. It’s her perspective. Who are we to judge?”

The filmmaker has seen many movies about young men experiencing “the darkest fantasies with older women.”

But Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything proved challenging, in spite of the fact that “Three Days in Quiberon” was a critical and commercial hit.

“We thought it would be easy — it was not that expensive, all in one place and no stars. But it wasn’t easy at all because financiers were like, ‘We’re not allowed to show that. How could she even fall in love with the guy like that? It’s disgusting.’”

The whole movie hangs on the chemistry between the two leads, Kramer and Burow, who are fairly new to the world of arthouse cinema and had never met. Atef says Burow, whom she cast among 60 girls she auditioned, and Kramer “rehearsed for months” with an intimacy coach to be able to perform these sex scenes, which are “the DNA of the movie.”

“They had to trust me totally and I had to trust them totally,” Atef says. The helmer praised the intimacy coordinator for “making her vision happen.” “It’s like a stunt coordinator. When there’s a huge fight, the stunt coordinator has to find a good axis and has to make sure that the actors don’t get hurt,” Atef explained. The coach also helped the actors draw boundaries and express what they didn’t feel comfortable doing. She also got Burow and Kramer to imagine their animal avatar to embody their characters, and find inspiration for the gestures and the gazes during intimacy scenes. Ultimately, these sex scenes are “all choreographed, it’s not at all erotic,” she says.

Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything is set against rich historical backdrop, in the aftermath of the fall of Berlin wall. It sheds light on the struggle of Eastern Germans in the wake of reunification.

“You can’t imagine how traumatized a lot of East Germans are of the reunification and they’re bitter because they got such bad deal–there was the winners and the losers. And the losers are just losers,” says Atef.

Atef was moved to present “Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything” at Berlin Fest as she’s about to leave Germany after 20 years there. She’ll move to Paris for several months to work on a “Shakespearean” series about fictional fashion house, produced by TOP, the banner behind “The Bureau.”