Anja Lais

SUMMER. HEAT. SWEAT. CHILDREN'S LAUGHTER. ALL BECOMES DARKNESS.

A Berlinale award nominated short feature.

On March 25, 1996, the publicist Jan Philipp Reemtsma is kidnapped. His son Johann and his wife Ann Kathrin witness how their home is transformed overnight into a police control center. Two police officers, the family’s lawyer and a close friend form a community of fate, united by their common goal of bringing Johann’s father home as quickly and unharmed as possible.

Single parent Mona Doermer travels to the Baltic Sea with her two children Tom and Marlen. The mentally unstable mother and the children, which are alarmingly mature for their age, form a strange team that many in the coastal town notice - including the young Commissioner Greta. When little Marlen mysteriously disappears, there is great excitement. Greta, who feels strangely connected to Mona, does everything she can to find the missing girl and to discover the dark secret of the mysterious stranger.