Requiem for a friend

Based on the thriller of the same name by bestselling author Elisabeth Herrmann.

The new film with Jan Josef Liefers as lawyer Joachim Vernau is set in today’s Berlin with all its problems. It’s about housing shortages, corruption, greed and bribery in the highest circles. But it’s also about Vernau’s old friendship with Sebastian Marquardt (August Zirmer), who advises construction lords and politicians and – in contrast to Vernau’s integrity and incorruptibility – earns good money doing so.

A tax audit takes place in the office of Berlin lawyer Joachim Vernau (Jan Josef Liefers). For some unknown reason, the tax official in charge, Harry Fischer (Peter Trabner), is interested in a four-year-old entertainment receipt and therefore forces Vernau to drop by the office in the middle of the night. When he arrives, the tax inspector is dead – shot.

What is so special about the receipt? At the time, Vernau was having dinner at an expensive restaurant with one of his oldest friends, Ku’damm advocate Sebastian Marquardt (August Zirner). But Marquardt can’t or won’t help him. He has other worries: his marriage to his wife Brigitte (Carina Wiese) is in shambles, he has debts, and with Tatjana Wolgast (Irina Potapenko) he has a new mistress who is also an employee. Vernau is also actually busy with other things: His mother Hildegard (Elisabeth Schwarz) and her friend Hüthchen (Carmen-Maja Antoni) have become victims of a real estate shark, and he represents them in an eviction suit in court.

Then Sebastian Marquardt suddenly disappears off the face of the earth. Vernau and his colleague Marie-Luise Hoffmann (Stefanie Stappenbeck) investigate and find out that on the day the hospitality receipt was issued, a Berlin prosecutor committed suicide. Is there a connection? And they discover that the dead tax official was obviously on the trail of corruption cases and crooked deals in Berlin’s real estate industry. The investigation does not go unnoticed and Vernau gets involved with the shady Adil Kalaman (Kida Khodr Ramadan) and his life is in danger.