The Nameless Day

Directed by Academy Award winner Volker Schlondorff, The Nameless Day tells the story of Jakob Franck, a recently retired police detective specialized in bearing the news of death to relatives. Retired chief superintendent Jakob Franck, who has imparted the news of a loved one's death more times than he cares to remember, is now looking forward to a less morbid life. But the past soon catches up with him when the despairing Ludwig Winther, whose wife Doris has just hanged herself, apportions blame to Franck. Two years previously, Franck had spent seven hours silently consoling Doris after the death of her 17-year-old daughter Esther. For all his sensitivity towards the bereaved, this had been an unusual episode even for him. Police investigations subsequently returned a verdict of suicide by hanging. Ludwig continues to reject the findings and believes that Esther was murdered. Franck feels obliged to resurrect the case and unravel the true circumstances of Esther's death using his idiosyncratic empathy and instinct.