Nikolaus Benda
Eifel landlady Toni Janssen wants a child, but not necessarily a man. After an alcohol-fueled slip, her ex-boyfriend Hajü, of all people, gets her hopes up. Meanwhile, Heidi accidentally meets an old childhood friend.
Susanne Elvan met her husband Tarek, a convicted violent criminal, through a penpal portal while he was in inprisonment. The wedding took place before his release. When Susanne was found murdered, Tarek had only recently been out of prison. The case seems clear, at least for Susanne's daughter Mia, who detests her mother's easily irritable new husband. The Cologne commissioners Ballauf and Schenk start the investigation. But when assistant Norbert Jütte sees on a crime scene photo that the murderer has tied a belt over his victim's eyes, the case takes an unexpected turn: Jütte is convinced that he has dealt with the murderer before, earlier in his career, when he was doing his duty in another police department in another city. A serial perpetrator with a recurring murder ritual seems to be straggeling around in the city.
Sex is power, and Waseem, a Syrian gay-for-pay hustler seeking asylum in Cologne, wields it like a shield. Keeping his johns at an emotional arm’s length while satisfying their most carnal desires in order to eke out a living, he meets his match in Lars: a kind, affluent professional with a growing personal interest in Waseem. This gripping tale of transactional identity explores the tactical exchange of trust and intimacy in a partnership, and the divisions between immigrants and their host countries in contemporary Europe.
It is the late 1950s. Flourishing under the economic miracle, Germany grows increasingly apathetic about confronting the horrors of its recent past. Nevertheless, Fritz Bauer doggedly devotes his energies to bringing the Third Reich to justice. One day Bauer receives a letter from Argentina, written by a man who is certain that his daughter is dating the son of Adolph Eichmann. Excited by the promising lead, and mistrustful of a corrupt judiciary system where Nazis still lurk, Bauer journeys to Jerusalem to seek alliance with Mossad, the Israeli secret service. To do so is treason — yet committing treason is the only way Bauer can serve his country.
