Anyone who has little faith in German film should now read on carefully. More than two decades ago, Hans-Christian Schmid marked a turning point in German cinema history with his film “23 – Nothing is as it seems”. Find out why you shouldn’t miss the thriller here.
The German director Hans-Christian Schmid is currently proving in the cinema with the drama “We are then probably the relatives” that he is one of the best in his squad and knows how to translate classic thriller material into sober, but no less depressing images.
The tragic case of the young hacker Karl Koch, who together with like-minded people carried out the legendary KGB hack in the 1980s, also belongs to such classic thriller material. Koch and the others hacked into alien systems around the world and ended up working as spies for the KGB. Cook, obsessed with the number 23, believed he was on the trail of the Illuminati and acting in the service of world peace, but slipped deeper and deeper into cocaine addiction and gradually alienated himself from his closest friends and fellow hackers, the finally got him admitted.
Koch, who defined himself as a left-wing activist throughout his life, later worked as a messenger – for the CDU of all things. However, he never returned from his last errand trip. His charred body was found a short time later in a forest in Lower Saxony. He died presumably on May 23 at the age of 23. The exact circumstances of his death are still unclear to this day.
Next Monday, November 28, the ARD offshoot One will show at 8:15 p.m Schmid’s congenial cinematic translation of a spectacular and harrowing case in German hacker history. “23 – Nothing is what it seems” draws masterfully follows the inexorable path of self-destruction in form and content and is brilliantly cast with German actors such as August Diehl, Burghardt Klaußner and Hanns Zischler – 99 minutes of high suspense guaranteed!
Everyone who likes it dark on the TV at this time of year can be inspired by our video:
Finally, for those who are generally familiar with Schmid’s visual language and narrative style, we definitely recommend going to the cinema: “We are then probably the relatives” has been shown in German cinemas since November 3rd and is about the Reemtsma kidnapping, which took place in dominated the German headlines for weeks in the late 1990s.