The German People
Once a month, the Goethe-Institut collaborates with the Cinémathèque québécoise to present a significant work of contemporary German cinema: fiction films, documentaries, bold and entertaining productions by established and emerging filmmakers.
On the night of February 19, 2020, a racist shot and killed nine young people in Hanau because he did not consider them German. This tragedy has plunged their families into mourning and driven the survivors to fight not only for the victims, but also for truth and justice. For four years, director Marcin Wierzchowski followed their tireless efforts to ensure these events are not forgotten.
Marcin Wierzchowski
Director and producer Marcin Wierzchowski was born in Warsaw in 1984. His parents fled Poland and emigrated to Germany due to the civil-war like conditions in Poland; Marcin was still so little he fit in his mother’s handbag. Wierzchowski quit school at 17, when he began working in a video store, watching innumerable movies and decided to be a director. He went back to school to get his Abitur in 2012 and then began studying philosophy in Frankfurt am Main. In 2013 he moved to the Kunsthochschule Mainz to study fine arts with a focus on film under Professor Harald Schleicher. He now lives and works in Frankfurt am Main and Warsaw. His debut film, the 47-minute documentary Hanau - Eine Nacht und ihre Folgen won the Grimme Award and is the basis for his 2025 feature film The German People, which premiered at the 2025 Berlinale. He is a director, author, video artist, set designer, producer and is currently working on his first works of fiction while continuing to make documentary films.
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