The film depicts life in Nepal’s leper colonies, where leprosy, now curable, is seen as a divine curse. During the monsoon, when gods leave the Kathmandu Valley, people face afflictions like leprosy. Nepal has 170,000 cases, with many severely disabled and ostracized due to fear and religious beliefs. Lacking support and medical care, they end up as beggars in cities.
The autobiographical portrait of Theo Berger, who gained notoriety as the king of burglaries and escapes and spent most of his life in prison. His criminal career includes over 150 crimes committed since the age of 18. Theo Berger was sentenced twice to 15 years and twice to preventive detention. The film was made during his parole, which he received after contracting leukemia. But less than six months after filming was completed, Theo Berger was arrested again. Unprepared for a life in freedom, he was involved in a bank robbery. He was sentenced to a further 12 years in prison.
Franz Woyzeck, the protagonist of Georg Büchner's unfinished drama is incorporated in this adaption of a classic. The contemporary Franz Wodzeck lives in Germany's Ruhr industrial region. Wodzeck meanders back and forth between the monotony of working each day in a car factory and returning each evening to the cheerless desolation of the factory dormitory. Once his girlfriend, Maleen, snubs him for his boss, Wodzeck's personal and social frustrations escalate into a vista of emotions: he runs amok and bloodily stubs Maleen to death. After he has killed his one sole love Wodzeck resigns himself to his fate. A hollow shell of a man is admitted to a psychiatric asylum. He feels no more anxiety, no more desire. He simply exists. FBW Prädikat: "wertvoll".
