Die Tochter der Landstraße (1915)

The Gypsy Zirzi belongs to the “travelling people” and has to endure quite a few insults on the road. When a situation once seems to be turning dangerous, an elderly farming couple comes to her defense. In gratitude, Zirzi helps them with a personal matter that calls for her detective skills. Their son is in prison, accused of murder. With her keen instincts, Zirzi soon gets on the trail of the real culprit: a Japanese scholar. But this puts Zirzi in a difficult position, because she has fallen in love with the “exotic” man she has exposed, who, like her, is an outsider in this country. Torn between her deep affection for him and her gratitude to the farming couple, she chooses justice over love. But Zirzi also does not want to see her Japanese lover end up on the gallows, so she gives him the chance to take his own life. Afterward, Zirzi returns to her people and remains what she has always been: a daughter of the open road.