Colonia

In the midst of the Chilean military coup in 1973, Lena (Emma Watson) and her boyfriend Daniel (Daniel Brühl) are arrested by Augusto Pinochet's secret police. While Lena is released after a short time, Daniel is taken to the isolated Colonia Dignidad in the south of the country. The settlement, run by the shady preacher Paul Schäfer, is supposed to give the outward appearance of a spotless community serving charitable purposes, but in reality those in charge collaborate with dictator Pinochet, for whom they interrogate and ultimately kill the incarcerated with the aid of cruel torture methods. No one ever left the place alive. Full of desperation, Lena joins the questionable group to find Daniel and escape together with him... “As befits a good thriller, the dramaturgy sets a rapid pace and presents plenty of suspenseful moments of a successful kind. “Harry Potter” star Emma Watson may seem a little pale at times, but the performance of Daniel Brühl is all the more intense (now almost unmentionable!), who masters the spectrum from casual revolutionary to desperate torture opera and back to resistance fighter with playful ease. [...] There is also a small celebrity cameo: but you have to look a little closer at the scene on the tower! Director and co-writer Florian Gallenberger did intensive research for his political thriller and spoke to contemporary witnesses. The story of the German lovers and their escape thanks to a daredevil Lufthansa pilot is fictitious, but apart from this dramaturgically necessary fiction, the scenario is based on true events. Be it the frightening bondage of the sect members, who are willlessly enslaved to the guru. Be it the regular abuse of children by the self-proclaimed religious leader or his lucrative arms deals with the Pinochet regime. The role of the German embassy in Santiago at the time, with which the sect obviously maintained excellent relations, is particularly explosive. To this day, the files are subject to secrecy, which is likely to provoke discussion after this film - for a political thriller, this would be the highest honor." (Dieter Oßwald, on: programmkino.de)