Kreuz des Südens (2015)

Viennese police officer Tommy Wehrschitz learns that his father has left him an old schoolhouse in his home village in southern Burgenland, and he wants to sell the inheritance. Wehrschitz left the village with his mother when he was four and has had no contact with his father since. During an operation, Wehrschitz suffers a serious head injury. While recovering from the incident, he travels to the village to meet with the mayor. The municipality wants to buy the building back. The villagers do not exactly welcome him with open arms; only Eva, the shopkeeper known for her mushroom soup, and his neighbor Traude treat him with less hostility. When he receives postcards pierced with holes, sent from a children’s home, and realizes that the holes depict the constellation Crux, he visits the home. It once housed all the children who had been left behind by emigrants. The cards are from Walter, a boy with Down syndrome whom his father once took special care of. The village is preparing for its Emigrants’ Festival, which former residents living abroad regularly return to attend. The mayor says that Wehrschitz is an emigrant too, and could therefore be an honored guest. He receives a badge of honor depicting Crux, but commits himself to making a donation toward the village’s renewal. At a performance by the circus visiting the village, Wehrschitz witnesses a tragedy. Knife thrower Daniel misses his target during the show and kills firefighter Fenninger in front of the audience. Fenninger also owns a sawmill and is the village’s last major employer. At first, it is unclear whether this was an accident or murder. The police assume it was an accident and release Daniel. He returns to the village, where some residents, including Patrick, the mayor’s son, believe Daniel is a murderer and try to take the law into their own hands. It emerges that Daniel originally came from the village too, is suffering from cancer, and wanted more than anything to return to his home village with the circus before he died, in order to take care of something. Wehrschitz begins investigating, while the mayor would rather let the matter blow over. Knife thrower Daniel is eventually found dead, and the police assume that his cancer was the cause of death. Wehrschitz, however, suspects mushroom poisoning after finding records of a similar case among his father’s papers in the house. The coroner, who is a friend of Wehrschitz, discovers that the mushroom soup really was poisoned. Another colleague tells Wehrschitz that Eva had reported Fenninger for rape fifteen years earlier, but there was no trial because the complaint was withdrawn. Wehrschitz suspects that Fenninger was the father of Eva’s daughter, Fanny, but Eva denies it and eventually confesses that knife thrower Daniel was Fanny’s father. Beneath a trapdoor in the school classroom, Wehrschitz finds two badly decomposed bodies. He assumes they are the two people who disappeared without a trace during the 2012 Emigrants’ Festival, since both were wearing badges. After telling the village that he intends to replace all the flooring in the schoolhouse, Wehrschitz installs a surveillance camera there. The mayor is determined not to let him tear up the floor, saying that the room is needed for the upcoming Emigrants’ Festival. Patrick also pressures him not to replace the floor and to donate the money intended for it to the municipality instead. Wehrschitz pretends to leave, but waits nearby. During the night, he catches Traude tampering with the school floor. She knew that Daniel was Fanny’s father. According to Traude, the two victims in the school also deserved to die because they had left their children behind in Burgenland to pursue careers abroad—just as her own parents had left her behind decades earlier. Wehrschitz is struck from behind with a shovel and locked beneath the trapdoor. Patrick sets the school on fire, but Wehrschitz manages to escape the burning building in time; Traude, however, dies inside. After a stay in hospital, Wehrschitz builds a new house, where he lives with Eva, who is now pregnant, and Fanny. Some time later, the mayor brings him remnants from the fire-ravaged building, including the surveillance-camera footage. In the footage, Wehrschitz sees that it was Eva who struck him down. Eva sees this and asks whether he plans to go back to Vienna. He says no.