Hamburg - Cameras have just started rolling as production commences on the six-part TV event mini-series (6 x 45’) "Dark Woods" ("Das Geheimnis des Totenwaldes" (WT)), one of the most incredible crimes in post war Germany history.
Inspired by the true case of a missing woman in Lower Saxony, the crime drama stars leading actors Matthias Brandt (Babylon Berlin), Karoline Schuch (Hanna’s Journey), August Wittgenstein (Das Boot), Silke Bodenbender (Vater Mutter Mörder) and Nicholas Ofczarek (Pagan Peak).
Directed by Sven Bohse (Ku’damm 56 & 59), and with screenplays written by International Emmy and Grimme Award winner Stefan Kolditz (An die Grenze, Generation War), "Dark Woods" is produced by ConradFilm and Bavaria Fiction on behalf of NDR and ARD Degeto for Das Erste. Commissioning editors are Christian Granderath and Sabine Holtgreve (NDR) and Carolin Haasis (ARD Degeto); Maren Knieling (Bavaria Fiction) is the executive producer.Inspired by a real criminal case, which has remained unsolved for nearly thirty years, "Dark Woods" portrays a brother’s increasingly desperate search for his sister and the continued deep distress her loss causes her family. Wolfgang Sielaff – the brother of the real missing woman who inspired this event series and former Head of the Hamburg State Office of Criminal Investigation and police chief in Hamburg – and Reinhard Chedor (also former Head of the Hamburg State Office of Criminal Investigation) will assist the production as consultants.
In the summer of 1989, Barbara Neder (Silke Bodenbender), the sister of high-ranking Hamburg police officer Thomas Bethge (Matthias Brandt), disappears without a trace from her house. Shortly before two couples had been cruelly murdered in nearby woodlands. Artist Hans Lingner is quickly under suspicion – he lives on the edge of the forest and is a gun enthusiast. The links between the earlier murder cases and the “Killer Forest” and Barbara’s disappearance are not initially picked up by the investigators. Instead the police begin to suspect Barbara’s husband Robert (Nicholas Ofczarek) who was in the process of divorcing his wife. Their daughter Theresa suffers greatly from her mother’s disappearance and the suspicions surrounding her father, making her too believe her father may be her mother’s murderer.
Meanwhile, the brother of the missing woman – Head of the Hamburg State Office of Criminal Investigation – Bethge – faces the most difficult task of this life because as a Hamburg police officer he is not permitted to investigate a crime in Lower Saxony. He then seeks support from his colleagues Anne Bach (Karoline Schuch) and Frank Behringer (Andreas Lust). Bethge’s quest for justice continues long after his retirement as he and his team eventually, through painstaking and meticulous research, finally get on the track of a suspected serial killer.
With shooting ending on November 6th, the event mini-series is set to premiere in the second half of 2020 on Das Erste. Global Screen will handle international distribution.