Movies

Just Mercy

As a young, promising lawyer, Bryan Stevenson (Michael B. Jordan) can choose where he works after graduating from Harvard. His motivation, however, is not the opportunity to earn a lot of money, but above all to help those who especially need his help.

He heads to Alabama to work alongside attorney Eva Ansley (Brie Larson) on behalf of the wrongfully convicted – and makes headlines right away with one of his first cases: Walter McMillian (Jamie Foxx) is alleged to have committed a cruel murder for which he was sentenced to death. And this despite the fact that there is sufficient evidence to prove his innocence. The alleged perpetrator is only incriminated by the testimony of a criminal, who also has good reason to lie. But Bryan doesn’t let up, and in his first years on the job he takes on numerous cases with little chance of success, which repeatedly confront him with exposed racism…

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2020 – Language: German – Length: 137 min.

Dead Man Walking: Sein letzter Gang. Deutschsprachige Verfilmung.

Dead Man Walking – His Last Walk

A letter from a dead man walking. For Sister Helen Prejean a call for help and at the same time the ticket to a world of horror and fear. She, the sheltered one, is supposed to take care of him, Matthew Poncelet, the murderer and rapist until the death sentence is carried out. Fear and despair, anger and sadness, joy and shame are her companions from now on. When they finally set out together to carry out the sentence, Sister Prejean believes she is losing all her strength and faith. Until, in the hour of death and at the end of a fateful drama, he finally confesses his guilt to her…

1996 – Language: German – Length: 117 min.

The Life of David Gale

Philosophy professor David Gale has been campaigning for the abolition of the death penalty for years. When one day his co-worker is found dead, he is accused of having raped and bestially murdered the woman. Shortly before his execution, Gale grants a journalist an exclusive interview and tells her his version: he is convinced that he was framed.

2003 – Language: German – Length: 130 min.

The Fear of 13

After 23 years on death row, a convicted murderer calls the court and asks to be executed. But as he tells his story, it gradually becomes clear that nothing is as it seems… THE FEAR OF 13 is an unprecedented real-life psychological thriller, constructed from a single, four-day interview and enriched with gripping visuals.

In a monologue that is part confession, part performance, the protagonist Nick tells his story with all the twists and turns of a classic crime drama. But as the story unfolds, it reveals itself as something much deeper: an emotional meditation on the redemptive power of love and literature. And suddenly, a shocking twist puts everything in a new light…

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2016 – Languages: German/ English – 88 min.

Monster

In 1989, Aileen Wuornos killed six of her johns in Florida, and in October 2002, she was executed as a serial killer in Florida. Patty Jenkins tells this authentic story from the perspective of “Monster,” a young woman from the impoverished lower class who was raped as a child and prostituted herself as a teenager. When Aileen falls in love with young Selby, from a seemingly well-ordered background, she learns for the first time that there is also love, tenderness and security. She wants to get out of the muck and take care of this girl. But the last suitor is the wrong one, a perverted perpetrator of violence, whom she just manages to shoot before he tries to kill her…

2003 – Language: German – Length: 110 min.

DVD-Cover: DIe Zweite Hinrichtung: Amerika und die Todesstrafe

The Second Execution: America and the Death Penalty

In Lucasville Prison, Ohio, an inmate is scheduled to be executed on September 16, 2009 – Romell Broom, 53, African-American, sentenced to death in 1985 for kidnapping, raping and murdering a 14-year-old girl. Something unheard of happens: the execution by lethal injection has to be stopped after two hours and 18 unsuccessful attempts.

Now a legal tug-of-war set in. Can someone be executed for the second time? It was at this stage that film writer Michael Verhoeven began to get involved in this unprecedented story and document the proceedings. At first, the conversations he had with those involved in the proceedings revolved around the legality of a second execution. But very soon it became clear that Romell Broom already had no chance of justice at his trial. Broom should not have been sentenced to death in the first place. Michael Verhoeven’s film brings together all the people who were and are involved in the first and the current trial of Romell Broom. He meticulously reconstructs the crime, the investigation and the trial down to the last detail. He explores what this unique case does to the victims’ families, the alleged perpetrator and his loved ones, the investigators, the defense attorneys, and the prosecutors – and what this case says about the social reality of the United States.

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2012 – Language: German – Length: 75 min.

Exonerated [UK Import.]

The Exonerated is a stage play revolving around the true stories of six former Death Row prisoners (Kerry Max Cook, David Keaton, Gary Gauger, Delbert Tibbs, Sonia Jacobs and Robert Earl Hayes) who were released from prison after their convictions were reversed. The play briefly tells in narrative fashion each person’s story of what she or he was falsely accused of, how she or he was wrongly convicted, and his or her eventual exoneration.

2008 – Language: English – 87 min

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