Mordnacht (2024)

Gabriel Panski recently moved with his family from Hamburg to his hometown of Heiterstorf. Since he left the village in a rather high-handed way back then, the community makes things difficult for him and mocks him when he tries to join the rowing team. After waking up following a night of heavy drinking, unable to remember what happened the previous evening, Panski is suddenly celebrated and showered with gifts by the villagers. They believe he killed Johann Butz, a Hamburg property tycoon who had wanted to cheat them out of their money and who has now been hanged from the village entrance sign with his face completely smashed in. Panski tries to find out what really happened that night, as does the determined detective Leonie Winter, who is on his trail. Panski’s behavior makes him increasingly suspicious and gives Winter further clues. Her investigation into his past turns up nothing that clears him. Panski used to be Butz’s business partner, and Butz later sold the company at a profit, giving Panski a possible financial motive. And since his wife, Anna, had an affair with Butz five weeks earlier, the detective thinks jealousy could also have played a part. It turns out, however, that Panski knew nothing about the affair, and that Butz was shot from some distance away—something Panski would have been incapable of doing in his drunken state. Panski and Winter begin searching for the truth together. Winter discovers that the Gutdorf family, who own the rowing club, were the only people in the village to sell to Butz because they were bankrupt. Butz’s plan to build apartments on the rowing club’s grounds would have ruined the family’s reputation and the village community, giving the Gutdorfs a strong motive for murder. Panski discovers that his wife Anna was a youth shooting champion and that the rifle she used is kept at the rowing club. The Gutdorfs could therefore frame Anna. Panski talks things through with Anna and tells her what they have learned. To clear themselves, they must get the Gutdorfs to confess. At the rowing festival, Panski tries to get the Gutdorfs’ son to talk, when his mother, Erna, suddenly appears and threatens Panski with the rifle. She blames him for their predicament and accuses him of failing to take advantage of the win-win situation the murder had created, along with his unexpected rehabilitation in the village community, because he could not live with the guilt. As Erna Gutdorf is about to shoot, Winter’s assistant manages to overpower her. The Gutdorfs are arrested.