February 18 – March 10, 2022
Germany, color, 108 min., 2019/2020
Director: Johannes Naber
Main Cast: Sebastian Blomberg, Dar Salim, Virginia Kull, Michael Wittenborn
Genre: Drama, Political Satire
CURVEBALL tells the grotesque, at times even surreal, true story of how the Iraq war was started based on nothing but fake intelligence and the involvement of the German government and secret service.
Bioweapons expert Wolf of the German Federal Intelligence Service BND is obsessed with the idea that, despite the UN inspections, anthrax is still being produced in Iraq. Back home in Germany, his superior Schatz assigns him as a case officer for the Iraqi asylum seeker Rafid Alwan—because Alwan claims to have worked as an engineer for Saddam Hussein’s secret bioweapons program. It’s a rare triumph for a secret service not exactly spoilt by success: finally, they have a piece of intelligence that would put them one step ahead of the CIA. What they are missing, though, is proof—the search for which proves difficult, as ‘Curveball’ is well aware of his value to the agency. His claims, meanwhile, end up serving a number of decidedly different interests—the CIA, the German government, and everyone trying to use his incredible story for their own purposes. Thus, bit by bit, a constructed story becomes reality and a lie becomes the truth. A truth, which sets in motion a chain of events that forever changes the global political landscape.
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