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29 Jan – 8 Feb 2026

Eine Stadt wird erpresst

Dominik Graf | Germany | 2006 | 90' | | IFFR 2013

Georg Kalinke has been with the Leipzig Police Department since the 1970s. For many of his younger (oftentimes Bonn Republic-born and bred) colleagues, he’s but a relic from a bygone era. When the biggest case in a long time – Leipzig will be bombed to rubble if it doesn’t cough up 20 million in diamonds – lands in this lone wolf’s lap, folks get nervous. If things go wrong, some of them will have some serious questions to ask.
Kalinke also has problems of his own. All the leads point towards Gralwitz, a (fictional) village he knows only too well from a case that went sour back in the Honecker days.
Landscape after the battle.
Possibly the best piece of genre filmmaking about the economic – as well as psychological – toll ‘unification’ has taken on the people of the ‘Five New States of the Federation’. A bleak, pissed-off look at a nation still divided.

Film details

Country of production
Germany
Year
2006
Festival edition
IFFR 2013
Length
90"
Medium/Format
Betacam Digi

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