Witness House, The2014

Director
Matti Geschonneck

Actors

Iris Berben (Comtess Belavar)
Matthias Brandt (Erwin von Lahousen)
Jeff Burrell (Fabian Flynn)
Samuel Finzi (Bernstein)
Johanna Gastdorf (Elise Krollmann)
Britta Hammelstein (Emilia)

Witnesses about to testify at the Nuremberg War Trials needed a safe place to wait. All under one roof, each with their own secrets. And the countess assigned to take care of them. What was her secret?
Year is 1945. The Nuremberg Trials are about to begin; the war criminals are to be brought to justice. In a guest house of witnesses of the trials, perpetrators and victims of the Nazi crimes are housed under one roof.  Hired by the U.S. military administration as a house manager, Countess Belavar does her best to maintain a cultivated atmosphere among her guests. At first, everybody tries to adjust to the others and to the new times. But with the first testimonies in the courtroom, the past returns to haunt one and all with unspoken, unspeakable things…
“’The Witness House’ is a perceptive cinematic diagnosis of postwar Germany.” – Neue Zurcher Zeitung
“In a sense, ‘The Witness House’ tells of the very first seconds after the onset of ‘zero hour’ and it succeeds because it makes the catastrophe palpable in its traumatic after-echo.” – Spiegel
“It is enough to repeat actor Udo Samel’s recommendation to television viewers: Take a look at hell!” – Tagesspiegel