Director: Giulio Ricciarelli, colour, 123 min., 2014
Germany in 1958 was in a post-war reconstruction phase, a nation with a strong economic boom. Johann Radmann (Alexander Fehling) is a young prosecutor and must take care, like all newcomers, of mundane things like traffic offenses. A journalist Thomas Gnielka (André Szymanski) ensures his case is heard at the courthouse: a friend of him has detected a teacher as a former Auschwitz guards, but nobody wants to take up his display. Against the will of his immediate supervisor, Radmann begins to deal with the case - and stumbles upon a web of repression, denial and glorification of the past. In these years either no one ever heard of the word "Auschwitz", or wanted to forget it as soon as possible. Only Attorney General Dr. Fritz Bauer (Gert Voss) supports Radmann’s curiosity.
When Radmann and Gnielka find documents that lead to the perpetrators, Bauer recognizes immediately the highly explosive political subject and commissiones Radmann officially to further the investigation. He immerses himself completely in his new job and is making every effort to find out what really happened.
Based on real events,
Labyrinth of Lies offers a very unique look at the economic miracle years in Germany, when - in the years of Petticoat and Rock'n Roll - people wanted to forget the past and would rather look towards the future. It is a captivating story of courage, responsibility and the struggle for justice.
ARTHOUSE CINEMA
Arthouse Cinema is the regular film program of the Goethe-Institut. Every 2nd and 4th Tuesday of the month we screen independent movies, avant-garde movies, retrospectives, experimental films or documentary films from Europe and Indonesia – anything but the mainstream!
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