Deep within a blue-black fir forest lies the secludedmurder farmer. They were all killed here. The entireDanner family, including their children and the newservant, were brutally murdered with a pickaxe. Ithappened at the end of winter, on a dark night a fewyears after the war. The weather was terrible, the kindthat kept the villagers away from the forest, away fromwhere the wild Trud lives. No one in the village heardor saw a thing.They found the bodies only days later in the stable underthe straw or in their beds. Yet no one is surprised: oldman Danner was a tyrant and a miser who fell out witheveryone in the village, and his deeply pious wife spoketo no one. They say old Danner fathered the childrenof his daughter Barbara. They say sin lived on the farmand perhaps it was the devil himself that came andfetched them all.Two years later, when the 26-year-old nurse Kathrinreturns to the village to bury her mother, the place is

still gripped by fear and terror, for the killer still has notbeen found. Believing that no one in the village couldbe capable of such brutality, people are convinced it wasa stranger. After initial mistrust, the villagers graduallybegin to confide in Kathrin what they know about thebrutal murder.Having kept silent for so long, they are now relieved tofinally unburden their souls to someone from outsidetheir village, for deep inside they all know they areresponsible for what had happened. Yet, all theirdesperate prayers bring them no salvation; the bigotrylies deep in this pious village community.Everyone knew what was going on at the Tannoed farm,but no one had done anything to stop it. Shockingallusions to her mother and her unknown father inconnection with the Danner family murder unsettleKathrin, and she soon realizes that this case has muchmore to do with her than she would have liked to admit.

What attracted you to THE MURDER FARM?

I didn’t know the book nor had I heard of the case. Ithen read the novel and it instantly touched me, but Ialso knew that I would have to find my own form andnot accurately retell the story, but find a different filmicapproach. I found this very appealing.

You expanded the plot of the novel by adding another

time level and additional characters. What was the idea

behind it?

When I make a film, I want to develop a vision for itthat goes beyond the actual story. Of course it’s aboutthe murder, but at the same time it also reflects a societyand generally says something about the humancondition and its depths. It’s about guilt andresponsibility, about the longing for a better life. Thisis why we created Kathrin’s character. She isn’t activelyseeking the identity of the murderer like a detective,but through all the confrontations she is learningsomething about being a human being and consequentlyabout herself. You want to know who the murderer is,of course, but you also start asking yourself howsomething so shocking could happen.Though the story

is set in another time and place, it was important for methat the film bears relevance and can be applied to ourpresent times. Though we know all of these things havehappened before, why is it that they still continue tohappen?

How would you describe your version of THE MURDER

FARM?

I see it as a psychological drama with criminal elements.The criminal plot holds the story together but actuallyit’s a prayer. A begging for salvation that doesn’t come,at least not easily. It’s about the question of guilt. I findit particularly interesting about the time shortly afterWWII, when people lived in the hope that evil hadfinally disappeared and yet how little it took to startsprouting again. It’s a lot more complicated than justsimply looking for a murderer. It poses the question:when does evil actually begin? Is it with the first act ofaggression? Or are actions such as looking the other way,prejudging and ostracizing the real causes for evil? Those“good intentions” in particular often result in veryterrible outcomes. “Goodness is but a piece ofdebauchery” is a line in the novel that very well described

the behavior of the village collective, because in the endthey naturally all just meant well. Incidentally, I don’texclude my main character from this in any way. She isby no means a hero who is better than all the others.When faced with the horror, she also loses her innocencein a certain sense and her perception of humanity isprofoundly shaken.

How was the shooting?

We had many problems with the equipment and theweather and we seldom had a day run as planned. It wasalso logistically complicated. Now in hindsight, I thinkit also had to do with the heaviness of the subject butduring the shooting you are usually pragmatic, thinkingabout where to put that body so that you get the pictureyou want. I have two children of my own and of courseknew that children had also been murdered. The murderitself is of course absolutely horrifying but the fact thateveryone in the village knew that something’s going tohappen on that farm, is just as terriifying. You try topush all aside while shooting but subconsciously it wasvery present. Even now after the film is finished, I stillcarry the heaviness of the story inside me.

When and where did you shoot the film?

We found two farms but the locations were 5 hoursapart which made matters very complicated. In addition,we had two time levels, summer and winter. When oneof our actors dropped out, we could only shoot some ofthe summer scenes in December and then had to strugglewith the onset of snow. We began shooting in Septemberand could only shoot the last scenes in April. There weretimes when we actually thought that there was a curseon the film: once we found a location in the forest andthe day before shooting determined the shots. Whenwe arrived on the next day to shoot, a third of the treeshad been cut down. I of course don’t believe in that sortof thing. Some shoots are just easier and some are moredifficult. My last film LATE BLOOMERS was very easyand THE MURDER FARM turned out to be a littleharder, but perhaps this was good as the energy andstrength we needed to get it done is reflected andexpressed in the strength and the power of the images.

Bettina Oberli was born 1972 in Interlaken inSwitzerland. She studied Film/Video at the School ofArt and Design Zurich (HGKZ) from 1995 to 2000,graduating with a degree in directing. She worked inNew York as a prop assistant with the actor and directorSteve Buscemi on a music video for Lou Reed and withHal Hartley on his feature film HENRY FOOL. She alsoworked as an assistant-director and assistantcinematographer on various advertising films as well asa casting assistant for Swiss television DRS.

In 2004, she received the International Lake ConstanceConference’s subsidiary award. After several award-winning short films, her first feature-length filmIM NORDWIND celebrated its premiere in thesame year at the San Sebastian film Festival.The film received the Zurich Film Award and wasnominated for the Swiss Film Award for Best Film.

Bettina Oberli also received the NDR Director’s Awardin Schwerin.

Her second feature film LATE BLOOMERS (DieHerbstzeitlosen, 2006), about four high-spirited,funloving retired women who bring chaos to a sleepyvillage, became the biggest box office success inSwitzerland since the last thirty years and was also asurprise number one audience favorite in Germany,attracting almost a quarter of a million viewers. In 2008LATE BLOOMERS was Switzerland’s official ForeignOscar Entry. Her new film THE MURDER FARM isnominated in the “Best Feature” category at the SwissFilm Awards.

Bettina Oberli lives with her husband Stéphane Kuthyand two children in Zurich.

KATHRIN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Julia Jentsch

TRAUDL KRIEGER . . . . . . . . . . . Monica Bleibtreu

GEORG HAUER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Filip Peeters

RUTH HAUER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gundi Ellert

JOHANN HAUER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Volker Bruch

DANNER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Vitus Zeplichal

DANNERIN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lisa Kreuzer

BARBARA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Brigitte Hobmeier

MARIANNE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Clara Conzen

JOSEF DANNER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lasse Bo Rosenthal

MICH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nils Althaus

MARIE KRIEGER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dagmar Sachse

DIRECTOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bettina Oberli

SCREENPLAY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Petra Lüschow

BASED ON THE NOVEL BY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andrea Maria Schenkel

PRODUCER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hejo Emons

Stefan Schubert

Ralph Schwingel

Kristina Löbbert

CO-PRODUCER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Martin Moszkowicz

Christof Neracher

PRODUCTION MANAGER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Christian Fürst

PRODUCTION DESIGN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Christiane Krumwiede

Peter Menne

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY . . . Stéphane Kuthy

EDITOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Michael Schaerer

ART DIRECTOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Christiane Schmid

MUSIC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Johan Söderqvist

SOUND. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Marc von Stürler

SOUND DESIGN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stephan Konken

COSTUME DESIGN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ute Paffendorf

MAKE UP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ronald Fahm

Fiona Franke

CASTING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Susanne Ritter

A PRODUCTION OF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wüste Film West GmbH

IN CO-PRODUCTION WITH . . . . . Constantin Film Produktion GmbH

Hugofilm Productions GmbH

Schweizer Fernsehen / SRG SSR Idèe Suisse