Film Archive

Justice (Justiz)

The young lawyer Felix Spaet is one of many witnesses when a distinguished Zurich councilman, Dr. Isaak Kohler, shoots Professor Winter in the middle of a restaurant full of well-known politicians, businessmen and artists. Kohler is arrested and sentenced to 20 years imprisonment. Dr. Kohler, happy as a lark and infectiously content behind bars, sends for Felix Spaet and asks him to re-investigate his case on the supposition that he is innocent. Down on his luck and out of money, Spaet has no alternative but to accept the job. The lawyer becomes obsessed with his intellectual enterprise and in the process he is driven to madness.

Hans W. Geissendoerfer was born in 1941 in Augsburg and studied German, Theater Science, Psychology and African Languages at the universities of Marburg, Erlangen, Vienna and Zurich. During extensive journeys in Africa and Asia, he made his first 16 mm documentaries and underground films. In 1969 he directed Der Fall Lena Christ. Geissendoerfer has been awarded four German Film Awards for his features Jonathan (1970), Der Sternsteinhof (1976), Die Glaeserne Zelle (1978) and The Magic Mountain (Der Zauberberg, 1992), an OSCAR nomination for The Glass Cell (Die Glaeserne Zelle), and a Golden Globe nomination for Justice (Justiz, 1993). As the inventor and producer of the hit TV series Lindenstrasse, he received a Bambi, a Golden Camera, and the Adolf Grimme Award Institute in 2001.
 

Genre Drama
Category Feature Film Cinema
Year of Production 1993
Director Hans W. Geissendoerfer
Screenplay Hans W. Geissendoerfer
Director of Photography Hans-Guenther Buecking
Production Companies Geissendoerfer Film- und Fernsehproduktion/Cologne, Luna Film/Zurich, in cooperation with BR/Munich, SDR/Stuttgart, Swiss Television SF/Zurich
Principal Cast Hark Bohm, Mathias Gnaedinger, Thomas Heinze, Maximilian Schell, Anna Thalbach
Original Version German
Subtitled Versions English

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