Vorpremiere Dokumentarfilm "JENSEITS VON SCHULD" mit Gästen

In the organizer's words:

Preview of the documentary film "JENSEITS VON SCHULD" by Katharina Köster and Katrin Nemec.
In attendance and followed by a discussion with the directors.

A black shadow lies over the lives of Ulla and Didi Högel. A shadow cast over the family by their son, who was convicted as a serial killer. Between 1999 and 2005, nurse Niels Högel killed at least 87 patients in hospitals in Oldenburg and Delmenhorst. A total of 332 cases were investigated on suspicion of murder. However, it is not Niels Högel who is the focus of the documentary by Katharina Köster and Katrin Nemec, but his parents. How do they deal with their son's actions? What does their everyday life look like? What is their relationship with Niels like today? They do not gloss over his actions in any way and have not broken with their son despite everything. His actions have also destroyed his parents' lives and they have to deal with the fact that there is no longer a normal family life. And yet the film shows two down-to-earth people in their everyday lives trying to find their own way to deal with their son's crimes.

Winner of the "kinokino Audience Award" at DOKfest Munich 2024.

What sense does it make to make a movie about the parents of a felon? Ulla and Didi Högel live a thoroughly unspectacular middle-class everyday life. She has become more thin-skinned, he says. She talks more openly about her difficulties in dealing with the incomprehensible. He still works in his profession as a nurse, the camera accompanies him to outpatient services with an old man.
(Bianka Piringer, www.kino-zeit.de)

The parents' story is also a tragic one, when they themselves become victims of their son's actions. At one point, they consider whether they should change their names and go to another place to escape everything. But on the one hand, they don't want to do that, they don't want to give up all the good things they have built up. On the other hand, it is questionable whether there can be an escape at all.
(Oliver Armknecht, www.film-rezensionen.de)