Film screening
Free Country

M for M-U-R-D-E-R | Goethe-Cinema 2024

Fri, 05/17/2024
7:30 PM Amphitheater, Saint Paul University

The Goethe-Institut Ottawa's monthly thematic film series on German cinema at Saint Paul University (223 Main St, Amphiteatre):

Free Country

Freies Land
Germany 2019, 129 mins.
Director: Christian Alvart
With Felix Kramer, Trystan Pütter, Nora von Waldstätten

In the winter of 1992 police detectives Bach and Stein find themselves in a desolate part of East Germany, where there is little sign of the blooming landscapes promised by Chancellor Helmut in the process of reunification. Two teenage girls have gone missing and the rumor is they have absconded to the West. As it soon turns out, they are not the first young women from the area to disappear without a trace. The unequal detectives immerse themselves in the local web of lies: Bach, whose complicated past gradually comes to light, was part of the GDR’s executive apparatus; Stein, the more volatile of the two, is dispatched from the Western city of Hamburg to this unruly place. Free Country is thought-provoking, exciting genre cinema with an awareness of history.

Adapted from the 2014 Spanish film Marshland by Alberto Rodríguez.

“If you like gritty detective stories, post-cold war intrigue or the creepy True Detective vibe, this is well worth your time.” (Benjamin Leonard, Movie Jawn)