Somewhere in Berlin. A package in the hallway. Alex, husband and father of three children, forgets the wine in the car. A bomb jolts him out of his routine. He loses his grip. Maxi, a self-confident young woman, wants to break away from her parents and stand on her own two feet. She had imagined her break-up quite differently. She gets angry and asks questions. And for the first time in her life she is afraid. Karl catches Maxi and offers answers. Resolute, smart as a whip and seductive, he pursues his own plan. As part of a movement. Today in Berlin. Tomorrow in Prague. Soon in Strasbourg – all over Europe.
JE SUIS KARL tells of the seduction after a loss, of personal pain and the danger of recognising the distortions in the thinking and actions of radical people too late, if only because one loves. Not in a distant future, but now. An uncompromising film at the height of our times. The film is as harrowing as a drama of a family as it is gripping as a social study. Director Christian Schwochow and screenwriter Thomas Wendrich explosively combine the fiction of a frightening scenario with the spirit of a reality to which one is only too willing to close one’s eyes and ears.