Heil

"You can call me when you're ruling Germany and invading Poland," an attractive ultra-right-wing supporter fires off to the lovelorn Sven, the local leader of a neo-Nazi cell. Romantic comedy? You bet, but also a scathing satire that spares no one: neither baldheaded radicals who worship the swastika, nor respectable right-wingers both middle-aged and elderly, nor seemingly harmless Nazi-hipsters, nor anti-fascists with their black-and-white notions of the enemy, nor the police or media. Their darling is Sebastian Klein, an acclaimed writer of Afro-German origin, currently on a promotional tour for his new book The Coffee-Stained Nation – Everyday German Racism. How is it possible that an anti-fascist-backed intellectual suddenly goes on television to inveigh against integration? After the contemplative Stations of the Cross, acclaimed German filmmaker Dietrich Brüggemann has delivered a biting, punk-rough, yet extremely intelligent commentary on the state of contemporary German society that can easily be applied to the countries bordering the director's homeland. (Karlovy Vary International Film Festival)