At the age of 15, Rupert Seidlein had to watch as his parents and his best friend were shot by two policemen. The policemen were acquitted of all blame. 30 years later, Rupert returns with his wife Anja to the town of his childhood. He seems to have finished with the fateful night, he is cheerful and even raises glasses to reconciliation with the meanwhile retired police sergeant Horn. However somewhat later Horn drowns in the river Rhein. Anja fears that this is no coincidence, but the local police rather quickly stop all investigation of the drowning incident. Only the mysterious inspector Wackwitz believes that Horn was murdered and refuses to drop the matter. Anja slowly realizes that her husband has not at all overcome his pain, grief and fury. She wants to protect him from the encroaching investigations by Wackwitz, but still Rupert cannot find any inner peace.

More information: https://www.akzentefilm.de/produktion/wir-waren-andere-menschen/

Jan Bonny, born 1979 in Düsseldorf, studied from 2001 to 2006 at the Academy for Media Arts in Cologne. His family drama GEGENÜBER (2007) premiered in the Quinzaine in Cannes, his film WINTERMÄRCHEN (2018) in the Locarno competition. He has also received awards and nominations for his productions for film and television at the Munich Film Festival, the Grimme Prize, the European Film Prize and the Oberhausen Short Film Festival. He has repeatedly collaborated with the artist Alex Wissel on experimental films such as SINGLE (2014) and RHEINGOLD (2017, with Volksbühne Berlin), which have been shown at the Haus der Kunst in Munich, the Kestner Gesellschaft, the Kunstsammlung NRW and the mumok in Vienna.