Im Netz der Camorra (2021)

The winemaker Matteo DeCanin runs a vineyard in South Tyrol, where he leads a comfortable and contented life with his wife, Stefania, and their daughter, Laura. The family is well regarded in the village and known for its good wine. Their idyllic life is shattered when Matteo’s childhood friend Nino Sorrentino turns up unexpectedly one day. But Nino is more than just a companion from Matteo’s youth: the two share a dark past from their time together in Naples. Matteo’s former ties to the Camorra catch up with him. Around the same time, the young African woman Akua Mbaye is found injured in the vineyards, and doctors remove a bullet from her shoulder. Carabiniere Adrin Erlacher and his colleague Silvio Bernatti begin investigating. Department head Christina Melauer would rather close the case and take Mbaye into immigration detention. However, Erlacher finds more and more signs that the perpetrators are from their village. Among other things, Erlacher finds a bloodied shoe in the vineyard, along with the label from a bottle of wine worth almost €3,000. Erlacher also fears for Mbaye’s life after a suspicious person appears at the hospital. He takes Akua into his home and investigates on his own. Matteo becomes a focus of the investigation. According to DNA analysis, the blood on the shoe from the vineyard belongs to the victim’s sister. Akua later tells Erlacher that one of Sorrentino’s men shot her sister. But she does not want to testify against Sorrentino; she wants to disappear instead. Sorrentino demands that Matteo adulterate wine for shipments to China. It is a lucrative business that the Mafia has recently started pursuing. Although Matteo initially resists, he has little choice but to comply with Nino’s demand, as Nino threatens to murder his wife and daughter and make him watch. Matteo is also supposed to commit another murder himself: he must beat Carabiniere Silvio Bernatti, who had been on their trail, to death with a hammer. Some time later, the police find Bernatti’s charred body in his burned-out car. Erlacher does not believe it was an accident, since shortly before his death Bernatti sent him the license plate number of a suspicious Neapolitan vehicle on his smartphone. For twenty years, Matteo has kept his true identity as Lorenzo secret from his wife. After Sorrentino’s men and Erlacher repeatedly show up at the DeCanins’ vineyard, and Matteo begins acting strangely in Stefania’s eyes, he finally has to confess to her about his shared past with Nino Sorrentino, whose life he once saved, and his former crimes. Stefania’s world falls apart. Sorrentino now demands that Matteo kill Mbaye, who could testify against him, and Erlacher, who is still on Sorrentino’s trail. Matteo tells his estate manager, Albert Psenner, that he is taking his wife and daughter to Kitzbühel. If anyone asks, Psenner is to say that they are headed to Zurich. In reality, Matteo sends his wife and daughter ahead to the hunting lodge in Kitzbühel, while he stays in South Tyrol and sets off with one of Sorrentino’s men to find Akua Mbaye and Erlacher. In front of Erlacher’s apartment, however, Matteo shoots Sorrentino’s man and leaves Erlacher and Mbaye alive. During a fight between Sorrentino’s men and Matteo, Matteo is wounded by a knife in the abdomen. He manages to flee to his wife and daughter in Kitzbühel, where he loses consciousness due to blood loss. Under torture, Psenner tells Sorrentino where the DeCanins are really staying. Sorrentino follows them to Kitzbühel and tries to set the hunting lodge on fire, but police—alerted by Erlacher—shoot him before he can succeed. Matteo soon recovers from his injuries, and Erlacher drops the investigation against him.