Die Kinder Sind Tot plot
Frankfurt am Oder, in the former GDR, is a hopeless industrial city that has been ravaged by unemployment and poverty since the fall of the Wall. In the summer of 1999, 23-year-old Daniela leaves her two small children alone to go out with her lover. The children are imprisoned in the sweltering apartment for fourteen days, until they die a gruesome death. The neighbors hear their screams, but nobody does anything. Child Protective Services knew that the children were in danger, but did not intervene. Their grandmother lived in the same apartment building, but forgot to look. Aelrun Goette, the director of this film, tries to find out how it got this far. What possessed Daniela, the young mother who became pregnant for the first time at seventeen and then had three other children, each by a different man? Why did her mother let this happen right before her eyes? Why did the juvenile defense not intervene? But above all: why did everyone look the other way?