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EIN MORD FREI

What if every person were legally allowed one murder?

Modern society considers itself to have moved beyond the age of violence. But is that true? Or do we simply no longer see raw violence because we have managed to classify it under enough aspects that align with our understanding of morality? Reduced to its essence—life or death—Ein Mord frei  presents the image of a society that sees itself as functional but demands ever more control to maintain its order. Whether it be death threats on the internet, the victims in online news that we swipe away when inconvenient, or the lingering and gawking at accident scenes, death is undeniably a part of us in many forms.

You can’t choose your parents. But do you really need both?

On the very day of their daughter Mia’s 18th birthday, the clumsy parents Christian and Simone stumble upon a serious death threat. Apparently, their rebellious daughter plans to send one of them to the afterlife, thanks to her newly acquired license to kill. Now, parental empathy is needed—or even better, strategy!

Determined to give their daughter an unforgettable birthday while curbing her youthful fury, both parents go all out. But Mia sees right through them, and between cake and balloons, it becomes a fight for survival for Christian and Simone—armed only with each other’s mistakes.

Bunker meets art space

For the closed-room drama, we portray a brutalism-inspired, massive, and protective architecture that withstands any external attacks.

Natural light enters only in a filtered manner—through a concrete block wall with small, knife-shaped slits and a sheltered courtyard featuring sorrowful lemon trees—into the expansive living space. The massive V-shaped concrete supports frame both the kitchen and the entrance area. Overall, gray plaster and raw formwork concrete surfaces dominate, graded in saturation and brightness to emphasize the individual cubic elements of the architecture. Color is introduced solely through furniture, art, and everyday objects—everything appears staged, from the objects to the protagonists themselves.

Crew

Director / Ares Ceylan – DOP / Konstantin Pape – Production Company / Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg – Producer / Rene Colling, Jan Hendrik Holst – Line Producer / Thomas Lechner – Edit / Andrea Grumbt – Color / Jonas Damm – Composer / Victoria Hillestad, Julian Erhardt – Sound / Kevin Sliwinski – Light / Markus Ott – 1st Asisstant Camera / Hannah Schwarzl – Gaffer / Joseph Finger, Florian Kant, Nils Ecke – Assistant Director / Malin Koch – Production Design / Jan Christoph Scheurer, Sophie Luise Rohm – Production Design Assistent / Felix Laskowski – Props / Marlene Mehrlein – On Set Props / Nick Scheufler – Construction and AD Runner / Jaro Burballa, Katja Huss, Rebecca Bader, Michael Gärtner

CAST

Simone / Nathalie Schott – Christian / Stephan A. Tölle – Mia / Alva Schäfer

Showreel - Snippet