In the east of Germany, a brutal incident occurred just a few years ago. A young refugees’ incomprehensible comments are causing irritation and fear at the supermarket checkout. He's got a wine bottle in his hand and apparently can’t pay for it. He is asked by another employee to put the bottle down. Three men storm into the shop and overwhelm the man brutally. They beat him and tie the defenseless man to a tree with cable straps until the police arrives. Is this moral courage or self-justice? The case ends up in court. The video artist Mario Pfeifer recreates the scene and provokes the audience to controversial discussions as he escalates and exaggerates the incident.… >>>
The number of people who talk about their extremist past is rather small – partially because they are seen as traitors by their former compatriots. That Dominic Schmutz and Felix Benneckenstein, a former Salafist and a former neo-Nazi, do so regardless has made a film possible that allows itself a lot of time to elucidate the circumstances under which young people radicalize without requiring much background knowledge. As young people, both were in emotionally charged phases of their lives looking for a meaning. Among the radicals, they found appreciation which they never experienced elsewhere. A big problem of closed worldviews is that they immunize against any kind of critique. For example, everything that didn’t fit into the universe of the right-wing extremist thought was anti-German propaganda to Benneckenstein to the point that he felt like “the truth” was being structurally suppressed by any sort of opposition. Intellectual preconditions seemed less relevant than emotional ones for this process. To outline this without trivializing extremist ideologies is a grand achievement of this film.… >>>
- Director: Julia Knopp,Maximilian Damm
