In Face of the Crime

In the 1920s, when hundreds of thousands of exiled Russians, who had fled Lenin's revolution, began to make their mark on Berlin's urban landscape, the city's inhabitants nicknamed Charlottenburg Charlottengrad. Dominik Graf's Im Angesicht des Verbrechens is set in this part of Berlin several waves of immigration later. It is a daring story about duty and guilt, but above all about the difficulty of defining oneself as an individual in a world where one is defined by one's origins. Marek Gorsky is a Russian Jew. He is a policeman and his sister Stella is married to a Mafia boss. Marek is drawn into a bloody war between two clans; he resolves the death of his older brother and falls in love with a young Ukrainian, who is forced to work as a high-class prostitute in Berlin. In his unusual new film, Graf makes use of one of the characteristics of the serial format that should not be underestimated – the fact that one is allowed to go over the top, to concentrate on the supporting roles and on details. In one of the episodes, a sub-boss who would like to leave the "company" is the main character; in another a couple made up of two corrupt police officers is the focus. A great epic, with a flood of stories that keep you rooted to your seat. (Berlinale)