What to Do in Case of Fire?

What to Do in Case of Fire? (Was tun, wenn's brennt?, 2001) is a German comedy-thriller you can watch online on iFILM. In 1988, six young Berlin anarchists planted a homemade bomb as a statement against the bourgeoisie. It did not go off. They scattered — and slowly became the thing they once hated.

By 2000, the group has dissolved into ordinary life: some are lawyers, some are in management, only Tim and Hotte still live in squats and fight old battles. Then the forgotten bomb finally detonates. Police open a terrorism case looking for people who technically no longer exist. The six have to find each other fast. Til Schweiger plays a man with a comfortable life and every reason to stay out of it; Nadia Uhl plays his former comrade, sharp and unwilling to look away.

Director Gregor Schnitzler keeps the comedy in the gap between who these people were and who they allowed themselves to become. For a film about political idealism, it is less interested in the ideology than in what happens when the past walks back in. Watch What to Do in Case of Fire? (2001) online on iFILM.