Searching for adventure and a way out, a young man meets a long-lost father figure among the narrow confines of the tower blocks of his Baltic Sea home. At first, he succumbs to the seductive spell of power and money. Ultimately, he finds himself. But the system doesn’t let anyone go…

THE SYSTEM is a political thriller, German genre cinema from the business world – an uncommon film, brave and shocking in the best sense. It’s also the moving drama of a young man who, having grown up without a father, must now find his own way. But more than that, the film is a multifaceted panorama of a wild East Germany, where the gold diggers had their claims staked out long ago and where the old GDR past eerily lives on.

This story is based on factual events as well as many years of research into the construction of the Russian gas pipeline into western Europe, the intrigues of old Stasi cliques in the new capitalistic atmosphere post-1989/90 as well as resulting business and political networks.

Info

Feature film
Director: Marc Bauder
Germany, 2011

Length: 85 min.
Format: 35 mm

Director: Marc Bauder
Director of Photography: Daniela Knapp
Script: Dörte Franke and Khyana El Bitar
Film Editor: Gergana Voigt
Music Supervisor: Paul Lemp
Production Designer: Petra Albert
Costume Designer: Andrea Schein
Key Makeup Artist: Jana Schulz
Sound Editor: Marc Meusinger
Production Sound Mixer: Lars Ginzel
Casting Director: Suse Marquardt
Production Manager: Günter Fenner
Producers: Alexander and Manuel Bickenbach
ZDF Editor: Burkhard Althoff

A Frisbeefilms production, in co-production with ZDF – Das kleine Fernsehspiel and bauderfilm. Made possible with resources from the Mitteldeutschen Medienförderung, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, the Beauftragten für Kultur und Medien and the German film rental fund Filmlichter GmbH, Cologne

Festivals

Filmfestival Max Ophüls Preis (Competition, 2011)
achtung berlin – new berlin film award (Competition, 2011)
Filmkunstfest Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Schwerin (Competition, 2011)
Festival des deutschen Films, Ludwigshafen (Competition, 2011)
MOLODIST kyiv international film festival, Kiev, Ukraine (German Wave, 2011)
FilmFestival Cottbus (Special Series, 2011)
Biberacher Filmfestspiele (Competition, 2011

Awards

DEFA Förderpreis, FilmFestival Cottbus, 2011
CineStar Award, Filmkunstfest Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, 2011

Press

“Without falling back on cheap bashing, this perfect political thriller about old Stasi cliques sheds light on the phenomenon of corruption when it’s not bound to a social system.”
Hans Kersten, Freitag

“Above all else, what makes THE SYSTEM so worth seeing is the way it delves into the universal theme: How does power work and how does it ensnare us?”
kino-zeit.de