The disappearance

Television broadcast
Original title	The disappearance
Country of production	Germany , Czech Republic
original language	German
year	2017
Production ; company	23/5 Filmproduktion GmbH, ARD Degeto, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Norddeutscher Rundfunk, Südwestrundfunk and MIA Film
length	88 minutes
Episodes	4 in 1 season ( list )
genre	Crime , drama
Director	Hans-Christian Schmid
script	Bernd Lange , Hans-Christian Schmid
production	Britta Knöller , Hans-Christian Schmid
music	The Notwist
camera	Yoshi Heimrath
First broadcast	October 22, 2017 on Das Erste
occupation

The Disappearance is a German crime series directed by Hans-Christian Schmid and produced for Das Erste . It had its world premiere on June 26, 2017 at the Munich Film Festival .

action

In Forstenau, a small town near the Czech border, the 20-year-old Janine Grabowski disappears. While there are many indications that she secretly wanted to turn her back on the province, her mother Michelle is convinced that something must have happened to Janine. The missing person report quickly disappears in the police files. Nobody likes to believe in a crime. So Michelle is forced to go on a search on her own. The more she learns about her daughter and her environment, the more she wonders how much her own behavior in the past has contributed to spinning a web of lies and secrets in which Janine is not the only victim .

Episode list

No. ( total )	No. ( St. )	Original title	First broadcast D
1	1	Janine	October 22, 2017
Janine disappears without a trace after going to the disco. Her home was searched and her car was found abandoned on the edge of the field the next morning. Her two best friends Laura and Manu are left with their own problems. All three and the small dealer Tarik are involved in business with crystal meth . Janine's mother Michelle reports her daughter to the police as missing and starts to look for her on her own.
2	2	Because we love you	October 29, 2017
During her research in the nearby Czech border area, Michelle finds Janine's dress in the trash. Now the police are also treating the matter as a missing person. Michelle learns about drug deals from Janine's friends and drives Manu to a drug laboratory in the Czech Republic, where she searches in vain for clues. Manu buys drugs there, which Michelle takes from her on the way back. Nevertheless, Michelle grants her shelter in Janine's apartment. There Manu finds the hidden first package and takes an overdose of meth.
3	3	Two mothers	October 30, 2017
Manu is rescued and Michelle, with a delay, hands over the drugs that were hidden in her apartment to the police. In Janine's apartment she finds photos on a memory card, which is stolen shortly afterwards during a break-in along with Janine's laptop. Tarik's fingerprints are found on the drug bag and he is arrested. It turns out that Janine was pregnant and had the child aborted in Germany after she disappeared.
4th	4th	A family	October 31, 2017
Little by little, Michelle understands the web of relationships between the friends and their families, which was obscured by secrets, lies and silence. Some of those involved accept the consequences of what happened, others are now trying to get out of it unmolested or to find a scapegoat. Janine's whereabouts are clarified.

occupation

actor	image	role
Julia Jentsch		Michelle Grabowski
Johanna Ingelfinger		Manu Essmann
Saskia Rosendahl		Laura Wagner
Elisa Schlott		Janine Grabowski
Mehmet Ateşçi		Tarik Karaman
Nina Kunzendorf		Steffi Essmann
Sebastian Blomberg		Leo Essmann
Caroline Ebner		Annegret Wagner
Michael Grimm		Helmut Wagner
Teresa Harder		Kerstin Karaman
Vedat Erincin		Ayhan Karaman
Isabella Bartdorff		Nicole Göhl
Godehard Giese		Martin Göhl
Stephan Zinner		Gerd Markwart
Golo Euler		Kai Jessel
Martin Feifel		Jens Koehler
Judith Engel		Juliane Durkheim

production

Produced The disappearance of the 23/5 Filmproduktion in co-production with ARD Degeto , BR , SWR , NDR and MIA film for the first . The editors were Bettina Ricklefs (BR), Claudia Simionescu (BR), Sascha Schwingel (ARD Degeto), Claudia Grässel (ARD Degeto), Christian Granderath (NDR), Sabine Holtgreve (NDR) and Kerstin Freels (SWR).

The shooting took place from August to December 2016 in Upper Palatinate , Lower Bavaria and the Czech Republic , Munich and Berlin . Birgitta Lohrer-Horres was responsible for the costume design , and Heike Lange was responsible for the production . The editing was done by Bernd Schlegel and Hansjörg Weißbrich , while Patrick Veigel was responsible for the sound.

The project was supported by the FilmFernsehFonds Bayern , the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg and the Czech State Fund for Cinematography. Michal Pokorný and Zbynĕk Pippal were co-producers.

World sales were taken over by Beta Film . The international title of the crime series is The Vanishing .

Performances

All episodes of the miniseries premiered on June 26, 2017 at the Munich Film Festival. The first broadcast of the four episodes in the first took place on October 22, 2017. A later evaluation in the third programs is planned with eight episodes of 45 minutes each. ^[outdated]

reception

Johanna Ingelfinger, Hans-Christian Schmid and Elisa Schlott at the German Television Award 2018.

The series received almost unanimously positive to outstanding reviews from the film critics.

David Denk from the Süddeutsche Zeitung described the crime series by Hans-Christian Schmid as a “great hit.” Alexandra Seitz from the Berliner Zeitung was also full of praise for the director and stated “staying power, a steady hand and a good eye” successful implementation of the material. He not only simply pulls aside the transfiguring veil of honesty and the decent in order to shed light on a swamp of crime lying behind it, "but it would be those" who are actually up to no evil, but who are caught in different constraints being dominated by fears and plagued by unfulfilled hopes ”, wonderfully brought into the light of history.

Elmar Krekeler stated for Die Welt that Schmid succeeded in spreading the plot "openly, ambiguously and non-explanatory [...] over six hours, without losing depth, density and existential impact."

In the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung on October 22, 2017, Lennart Laberenz described the disappearance as a “bitter series”. The series looks at a country “where the same people lose more and more often.” Hans-Christian Schmid examines the “place where the vast majority of Germans live: the province” not with “grand gestures, show values and inflated drama ”, but with“ precise means and subtle form ”of storytelling.

Sibylle Simon-Zülch described The Disappearance in epd Medien as a “great, concentrated mastery” and compared the series with the “dimension of an ancient tragedy” with a “dynamic of an artistically realistic narrative from the present”.

For Carolin Ströbele from Die Zeit , the series always had its strongest moments when it comes to the friendship of the three young women. But she regretted: "That this atmospheric series is not allowed to linger with its main characters because it still has a crime thriller to work through is the sad realization of this series project." She also criticized the resolution as banal; so “this unconventional eight-hour film ends up like a very bad crime scene. "

And in the taz Jens Müller wrote: "In these times of shorter attention spans, the series is namely the best that has been seen on ARD for a long time."