Loveparade –
The Trial
Grimme Award 2021 for Antje Boehmert (Writer/Producer) & Dominik Wessely (Director): This is an outstandingly documentation of the difficult legal processing of the deadly mass panic in Duisburg in 2010. (…) Here, precisely in its sober restraint, a great film has succeeded.
Nominated for the award of the German Academy for Television, 2020: The clever selection of the protagonists, the successful choice of motifs, an outstanding camera work, editing performance and film music make this film an impressive documentary, which has convinced the jury extraordinarily. Public television – as we imagine it.
THE TRIAL is a tale of corporate greed and public negligence at the expense of young people from around the world gathering for a music festival. With unprecedented access, the film unravels one of the worst disasters in counter-culture history.
What began as a street parade in Berlin in 1989 had by the mid-2000s long since grown into a million-strong spectacle garnering international attention. “Love Parades” were celebrated around the world. But the German Love Parade was “the mother of all parades”- born in a Woodstock-like spirit, it was the yearly institution of techno.
July 24, 2010: the “Love Parade” has left Berlin for a tour of the Ruhr valley, German’s former industrial stronghold, now a region weak in infrastructure and youth appeal. Hundreds of thousands of electronic music lovers pilgrimage to Duisburg to celebrate the 2010 edition. But the day ended in a fatal stampede. What went wrong?
The location was a former freight yard – no longer a street parade, it would be a fenced-in event for the first time. A tunnel from one side and an underpass from the other side met at a ramp: the only entrance and exit. There, the crowd squeezed. 21 attendees from Germany, Spain, Italy, The Netherlands, China and Australia died. 652 more were injured and traumatized.
If the court doesn’t deliver a verdict by July 2020, the trial will just end. So, will there be a verdict at all? And will there be closure, even?
Directedy by Dominik Wessely ● Written by Antje Boehmert ● Editor & Art Director Marcel Ozan Riedel ●DoP Knut Schmitz, Till Vielrose ● 1AD Carmel Fuhg ● Additional Camera Hajo Schomerus, Lara Vilanova, Michael Reichert, Sven Klöpper, Grischa Schmitz, Anna Molins, Markus Ruf, Lucia Ajuria ● Sound Jule Buerjes, Filipp Forberg, Michael Arens, Xavi Saucedo, Moritz Minhöfer, Ralf Weber ● Music by Jesús Díaz, Paloma Peñarrubía ● Original Sound Effects Jule Buerjes, Filipp Forberg ● Recording Jef Van Even ● Sound Design Florian Holzner, Alexandros Topalis ● Mix by Florian Beck, Jef Van Even ● Grading by Knut Schmitz ● Drone Operators Till Vielrose, Sven Klöpper ● Grip Stefan Hase, Tarkan Ülkü ● Postpropduction Coordiator Denis Faupel ● Narrated by Nina Petri, Jonas Baeck, Rolf Berg, Thorsten Botenbender, Andreas L. Maier, Bruno Winzen ● Associate Producer & Research Daniela Bollmann, Isabel Hughes-Morgan, Julieta Balasch, Benedict Wermter, Patricia Todolí ● Production Assistants Celia Angulo, María Batlle, Cristina López, Ángels Villar ● Translation Eva Göllner-Breust, Maria-Cristina Hervás, Luisa Callejon, Sandra Pontow, Cyrian Dubbeldam, Carmen Alvaro ● Stenographer Hannelore Böhmert ● Legal Consultant Dr. Ralph Oliver Graef ● Line Producer Ko Miklik ● Production Coordinator Carmel Fuhg ● Commissioning Editor WDR Jutta Krug ● Executive Producer Antje Boehmert, Eva Fontanals
Produced by DOCDAYS Productions & ARPA FILMS
In co-production with WDR, Televisió de Catalunya (TVC) in association with arte
Film-funding by Film- und Medienstiftung NRW ● Instituto de las Ciencias y las Artes Audiovisuales (ICAA) ● Institut Català de les Empreses Culturals (ICEC)
Distribution PBS International, mindjazz pictures
© 2020
Directed by Dominik Wessely
Written by Antje Boehmert
Editor & Art Director Marcel Ozan Riedel
DoP Knut Schmitz, Till Vielrose
1.AD Carmel Fuhg
Line Producer Ko Miklik
Commissioning Editor WDR Jutta Krug
Executive Producers Antje Boehmert, Eva Fontanals
Produced by DOCDAYS Productions & ARPA FILMS
In co-production with WDR, Televisió de Catalunya (TVC) in association with arte
Film Funding by
Film- und Medienstiftung NRW,
Instituto de las Ciencias y las Artes Audiovisuales (ICAA),
Institut Català de les Empreses Culturals (ICEC)
World Sales PBS International
Distribution Germany mindjazz pictures
Length: 88:30 Min
Completed: 2020
Grimme Award 2021 for Antje Boehmert (Writer/Producer & Dominik Wessely (Director): This is an outstandingly documentation of the difficult legal processing of the deadly mass panic in Duisburg in 2010. (…) Here, precisely in its sober restraint, a great film has succeeded.
Nominated for the award of the German Academy for Television, 2020: The clever selection of the protagonists, the successful choice of motifs, an outstanding camera work, editing performance and film music make this film an impressive documentary, which has convinced the jury extraordinarily. Public television – as we imagine it.
THE TRIAL is a tale of corporate greed and public negligence at the expense of young people from around the world gathering for a music festival. With unprecedented access, the film unravels one of the worst disasters in counter-culture history.
What began as a street parade in Berlin in 1989 had by the mid-2000s long since grown into a million-strong spectacle garnering international attention. “Love Parades” were celebrated around the world. But the German Love Parade was “the mother of all parades”- born in a Woodstock-like spirit, it was the yearly institution of techno.
July 24, 2010: the “Love Parade” has left Berlin for a tour of the Ruhr valley, German’s former industrial stronghold, now a region weak in infrastructure and youth appeal. Hundreds of thousands of electronic music lovers pilgrimage to Duisburg to celebrate the 2010 edition. But the day ended in a fatal stampede. What went wrong?
The location was a former freight yard – no longer a street parade, it would be a fenced-in event for the first time. A tunnel from one side and an underpass from the other side met at a ramp: the only entrance and exit. There, the crowd squeezed. 21 attendees from Germany, Spain, Italy, The Netherlands, China and Australia died. 652 more were injured and traumatized.
Only in December 2017 did a trial begin. The ten defendants are charged with 21 cases of negligent homicide which carries a sentence of up to 5 years and negligent bodily injury in many more cases.
If the court doesn’t deliver a verdict by July 2020, the trial will just end. So, will there be a verdict at all? And will there be closure, even?
Directed by Dominik Wessely
Written by Antje Boehmert
Editor & Art Director Marcel Ozan Riedel
DoP Knut Schmitz, Till Vielrose
1.AD Carmel Fuhg
Line Producer Ko Miklik
Commissioning Editor WDR Jutta Krug
Executive Producers Antje Boehmert, Eva Fontanals
Produced by DOCDAYS Productions & ARPA FILMS
In co-production with WDR, Televisió de Catalunya (TVC) in association with arte
Film Funding by
Film- und Medienstiftung NRW,
Instituto de las Ciencias y las Artes Audiovisuales (ICAA),
Institut Català de les Empreses Culturals (ICEC)
World Sales PBS International
Distribution Germany mindjazz pictures
Length: 88:30 Min
Completed: 2020