Operation Spring (film)

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Movie
Original title Operation Spring
Country of production Austria
original language German / English
Publishing year 2005
length 92 minutes
Rod
Director Angelika Schuster ,
Tristan Sindelgruber
occupation

Operation Spring is a documentary film by Angelika Schuster and Tristian Sindelgruber from 2005.

content

The film takes a critical look at the raids by the Austrian police , known as Operation Spring , which in May 1999 were directed almost exclusively against people with dark skin. At the beginning of the film, the media coverage of the ORF , the Kronenzeitung and other media is compared and it is shown how Operation Spring was initially almost unanimously presented as a great success against a " Nigerian drug mafia".

In the film, many participants who were on different sides in the proceedings have their say. In addition to several defendants and their lawyers, witnesses for the prosecution (including a previously anonymized witness who has since withdrawn his testimony), judges, jury and human rights activist Ute Bock , who worked in a refugee home that was stormed by the police in 1999, are interviewed. The defendant Emmanuel Chukwujekwu , whose trial was still ongoing six years after Operation Spring was filming, is accompanied to several days of the trial and his case is described in great detail.

The concept of the film is to show different ways of reading the events of May 1999.

resonance

"Operation Spring" has been shown at many prestigious film festivals. It was shown at the Viennale in Vienna , the International Festival for Documentary and Animated Film in Leipzig and the Visions du Réel , the documentary film festival in Nyon .

More than 13,000 people attended "Operation Spring" in Austrian cinemas. The theatrical success of "Operation Spring" contributed to the fact that six years after the police operation of the same name, a media and political debate on the topic could be sparked again, and numerous procedural errors and contradictions were publicly debated.

Awards

Press reviews

" Operation Spring shakes trust in the rule of law in Austria." (Stefan Grissemann, profile)

"Your exciting, always objective discussion of the largest Austrian police operation in post-war history (including the first eavesdropping) convincingly arouses considerable doubts about the approach taken by the judiciary and the media." (Die Presse)

"A judicial scandal becomes apparent that should actually shake the republic ... In an enlightened republic, a film like Operation Spring should trigger a debate about the state of legal culture." (Berliner Zeitung)

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