The Collini Case

The Collini Case (Der Fall Collini, 2019) is a German courtroom thriller you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Marco Kreuzpaintner and based on Ferdinand von Schirach's bestselling novel. Italian-born mechanic Fabrizio Collini walks into a Frankfurt hotel room, shoots a prominent industrialist, and turns himself in without a word of explanation.

Rookie lawyer Caspar Leinen (Jannis Niewöhner) is assigned the case. What makes it worse: the victim is the grandfather of the woman Caspar once loved. His client refuses to speak. Piece by piece, Caspar uncovers not just a motive but a decades-old legal loophole — a real West German statute that shielded former Nazi perpetrators from prosecution long after the war. Standing across the courtroom is a battle-tested senior attorney played by Heiner Lauterbach, and the system has every reason to keep the truth buried.

Von Schirach's novel triggered genuine parliamentary debate in Germany after publication, and the film carries that weight honestly. Elyas M'Barek heads the cast in a story where the courtroom is the only arena left for a reckoning that history refused to deliver. Stream The Collini Case (2019) online on iFILM.