Für meine Tochter (2018)

Benno Winkler is a fairly ordinary middle-aged German: a comfortably well-off, respectable pharmacist with a paunch, somewhat cut off from the world around him and still mourning his wife Sabine, who died some time ago. Over time, the reserved widower has grown distant from his daughter Emma, who is studying in Berlin. But when he learns that her passport has turned up at the Turkish-Syrian border, with no sign of her, the worried father sets off for Berlin to find out what is going on. Benno enters an abandoned student apartment. Photos on the walls suggest that Emma has a steady boyfriend. It also appears that she has been actively supporting a Syrian hunger striker named Valid Skeif. Benno visits the severely weakened man in hospital. Valid explains that Emma and her boyfriend Max went to Syria to smuggle his family into Germany. Benno immediately flies to Ankara and the German embassy. But the embassy employee, Behrens, has his hands tied. He advises Benno to look for Emma in the refugee camp on the Syrian border. Distressed, Benno travels to the dangerous Turkish-Syrian border region, where a Turk named Ilkay suddenly appears and offers his services as a driver. Benno manages to get into the vast refugee camp and, using a photo of Emma and Max, asks around at random about his daughter. Only a middle-aged Syrian father and his spirited son Rasin invite him into their tent. There, the three discover that they share a similar fate: Rasin’s family has lost its comfortable middle-class life and his mother. Just before Benno is due to head back, a man named Nabil approaches him, claiming to have met Emma before she went to Syria. Nabil generously offers help and contacts, but Benno will have to come up with $10,000 for checkpoints and possible ransoms. The next day, they drive across the border. After making sure Benno has the huge amount of cash, Nabil and an accomplice beat him up during a stop in the desert. Benno wakes in the blazing sun without money, passport, or provisions, and faces the existential challenge of surviving a long trek through the inhospitable desert. After walking for a long time, he reluctantly decides to drink his own urine, but it does not help for long; soon he collapses from exhaustion. A paramilitary unit finds Benno and takes him to a makeshift camp. His rescuers turn out to be a group aligned with ISIS. Their leader wants the “infidel” shot before they move on. But Benno is lucky: the warrior assigned to execute him gets cold feet and only pretends to shoot him. Benno manages to escape over the Turkish border fence. When he reaches the refugee camp, he is refused entry because he cannot show a passport. Benno is incredulous: “Are you crazy? I’m German, a German citizen.” Benno has to survive by stealing bread until aid workers finally bring the severely disheveled German into the camp and care for him. There, Rasin surprises him with some news. He leads Benno to a blond young man, whom Benno recognizes as Emma’s boyfriend Max. Max is deeply traumatized by a brutal ISIS attack beyond the border, during which Emma was buried under the rubble of a house. Heartbroken, they return to Benno’s hotel, where he gets drunk. In a conversation, it emerges that Max never actually saw Emma’s body. Hope begins to stir in Benno. Together with Ilkay, the two men cross the border again and search for the house in question, deep in the war zone. During another artillery bombardment, Max disappears and is presumably killed. Benno and Ilkay are confronted by armed women. To their surprise, they turn out to be Emma and Namira Skeif, Valid’s wife. Together with Namira’s children, they set off on the return journey.