DEUTSCHE SEELEN - LEBEN NACH DER COLONIA DIGNIDAD

In 1962, 500 German people followed the cult leader Paul Schäfer to Chile to set up the community formerly known as Colonia Dignidad. It was supposed to be paradise on earth but in reality, inside the walls of the compound, Schäfer’s devotees lived for 40 years under a perverse, authoritarian regime, cut off from the rest of the world. In recent years the true horrors of Colonia Dignidad have come to light. Schäfer has been convicted of the sexual abuse of children and there is evidence that the site was used for the torture and detention of Schäfer’s friend Pinochet’s opponents. Nonetheless, many people still remain in the colony to this day, seemingly unable to completely escape the indoctrination that kept them captive for so many years. Victims and perpetrators live side by side, locked in an invisible pact of silence and guilt. Open wounds fester behind the colony’s clean new façade. Matthias Zuber and Martin Farkas’ disconcerting film takes us inside a broken community haunted by a horrific past.

Nominated for the Talent Award of the Bavarian Film and Television Fund, FilmFernsehFonds Bayern