Die Tote im Moorwald (2011)

After unexpectedly learning of her mother’s death, aspiring artist Josefine leaves her hometown of Munich in a great hurry. She heads to a small Bavarian village that her mother had left shortly before Josefine was born, hoping to learn more about her unknown father, who was said to live or have lived there. The trip also gives Josefine some distance from her boyfriend, who, despite his promises, has still not separated from his wife. When she arrives in the village, she finds shelter at the half-derelict dairy of Willy Kamrad, an older man who lives there alone. But the everyday life of the small community, surrounded in part by moorland forests, is thrown into turmoil by the sudden disappearance of 22-year-old Jessica. Three years earlier, a young woman named Susanne had also vanished without a trace. During her stay, Josefine grows closer to Kamrad, a long-established local who seems rather strange, hoping he can give her information about her father. Along with photographs, Kamrad gradually finds documents that point to her father’s identity: he died in an accident many years ago. Her inquiries in the village first lead her to Angelika’s run-down farm, but Angelika does not want Josefine on her property and sends her away. At the village shop, where the shop assistant also regularly gives Josefine updates about the search for the missing young woman, Josefine has a series of strange encounters with Angelika. It soon emerges that Angelika is the mother of Susanne, who disappeared three years earlier, and that her husband was also Josefine’s father. He had had an affair with Josefine’s mother. Because she was pregnant, Josefine’s mother was dismissed from the business where she had worked alongside Angelika. Josefine increasingly feels uneasy around Kamrad, whose behavior is becoming ever stranger. It leads her to suspect that he had something to do with the disappearance of 22-year-old Jessica. Josefine turns to the local police, but they do not believe her accusations against Kamrad. Just as the aspiring artist is about to leave the police station, several officers arrive with Jessica, who had been missing. The police found her after she had suddenly disappeared—run off—with her new boyfriend. When Josefine returns to the dairy, her boyfriend Simon visits her. He confesses that he cannot leave his wife because she has unexpectedly become pregnant. Josefine ends the relationship. After Simon leaves the village, Josefine accidentally falls while Kamrad is with her and remains unconscious for some time. Meanwhile, Kamrad locks the artist in a cellar that is secured but furnished like a living space. When she comes to, she discovers, among other things, long hair in a hairbrush and personal belongings of Susanne, her half-sister, who disappeared three years earlier. This convinces her that Kamrad is the culprit. Realizing she cannot easily escape the locked cellar, Josefine pretends to be on excellent terms with Kamrad over dinner and asks him to lie on the bed, undressed, so she can paint his portrait. When Kamrad closes his eyes, she quickly and secretly takes the key from his jacket pocket and uses a candle to set fire to the bed and some curtains. Taking advantage of the confusion, she manages to escape the cellar, but Kamrad follows her into the moorland forest, where she has fled in desperation. After a chase and a struggle, Kamrad steps into a patch of bog and sinks completely beneath the surface. As he sinks, Angelika suddenly appears and helps Josefine find her way out of the bog. After giving her fresh clothes, Angelika takes her to the bus back to Munich the next day. As Josefine is leaving, Angelika gives her some letters written by her murdered half-sister Susanne, who had addressed them to Josefine but never sent them. In the letters, Susanne writes about their father, whom she herself had also lost when she was nine.