Free Country

Winter 1992, somewhere in the bleak, rundown expanses of northeast Germany: two police inspectors – one from the West, one from the East – are looking into the disappearance of two girls... And end up sinking deeper and deeper into the mire of the formerly divided Germany. A thriller with a sense of history.

Director Christian Alvart has succeeded in creating a thought-provoking and exciting genre film with a sense of history. In the long run, however, the past can be neither suppressed nor glossed over. In the best case, idealists become pragmatists; in the worst, collaborators. That’s life. Christian Alvart’s view of German-German history is deeply fatalistic. But there is also something liberating about it. He tears old wounds back open in the hope that they can finally heal properly.

Image © Syrreal Entertainment