Latest news with #BlackForestMurders
Daily Record
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Record
BBC viewers hail 'authentic and unpretentious' crime drama about real serial killer
The Black Forest Murders is a four-part series that was released in Germany in 2021 and has now landed on BBC iPlayer after being acquired by the broadcaster. BBC iPlayer has become the new home for an "intense" crime drama steeped in real events. The Black Forest Murders is a four-part series delving into the harrowing investigation of two young women's deaths in the south of Germany. Drawn from the factual Walter Roth book 'Soko Earle', the show fuses two actual criminal affairs from 2016, transforming them into enthralling police narrative fiction. The drama unfolds as the police uncover the body of a young woman, brutally murdered by a faceless assailant, igniting their hunt for the ruthless killer amidst a burgeoning pile of clues. Concurrently, the sleuths find themselves ensnared in another homicide case, leaving doubts about possible links to the first incident while uncanny similarities with an Austrian case from years before surface. Nina Kunzendorf stars as Barbara Kramer, with Tilman Strauß playing Thomas Riedle, complemented by a cast featuring Aliki Hirsch, Boidar Kocevski, Atrin Haghdoust, and David Richter, reports the Express. The description teases: "The clock is ticking... When a woman is bludgeoned to death, detectives face mounting pressure to crack the case and catch a killer. Intense crime drama inspired by real-life cases." Initially debuting in Germany, viewers there have extolled the series, with many binge-watching it in one intense session. A review acclaimed: "I watched the entire series in one sitting and thought it was excellent. The meticulous investigation was amazing. Nina Kunzendorf was at her best as a fair and likeable boss in a strong team." One viewer praised the four-part series enthusing, "I found this four-part series extremely good. It was exciting, with good dialogue, some of which was mumbled-it was due to the dialect -and a very good portrayal of a real series of murders. The actors did a very good job, especially Ms. Kramer, who acted convincingly. It was a glimpse behind the scenes of a special investigation unit. I'd be happy if there were more short series." Another said they couldn't help binge-watching: "We liked the series so much that we watched all the episodes right away. And it never got boring. This crime thriller was free of staged chases and unnecessary action-just good, real police work. Good actors, though difficult to understand at times." A third chimed in: "A wonderfully authentic and unpretentious narrative, a crime story like you'd only wish for, not cluttered with ridiculous subplots and overly contrived action. A fantastic team around Nina Kunzendorf, who always remains believable. Fantastic! I wish there were more original productions with such a dense atmosphere and such well-acted acting,". Following its acquisition by BBC, Sue Deeks, Head of BBC Programme Acquisition, remarked: "The Black Forest Murders is an authentic and compelling crime series focussing on the work of a meticulous investigative team." She further commented on the depth of the series adding: "As well as being a gripping murder mystery, the series offers a detailed look at the challenges of solving complex crimes, and the psychological toll on those involved in such high-stakes investigations." Black Forest Murders can be viewed on BBC iPlayer.
The Guardian
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The Black Forest Murders review – like watching a hugely satisfying puzzle come together
It's never a good sign, is it, to see a young woman going for a run in the woods at the start of a gritty European crime drama? The Black Forest Murders takes the real-life killing of two young women in the south of Germany as its basis, and turns it into an extremely thorough police procedural. The detective work here is complex, precise and painstaking, and there is a sense that the film-makers have no wish to spare viewers any of the intense slog it takes to track down the perpetrator (if indeed the police manage to do so). Nina Kunzendorf is senior detective Barbara Kramer, who grew up in the area but moved to Berlin to make her name in the police force. Now that her father is getting older, and more infirm, she has moved back to her (fictional) small, rural home town in the south, where she is treated as an outsider. Kramer seems like a loner, smokes a lot and is the sort of cop who will slam down the phone when she doesn't like what she's hearing on the other end of it. She is your classic TV lead detective. The force at her command are local people who have remained local, and they largely resent her Berlin ways and lack of community knowhow. But she, too, is contemptuous of their amateur methods, small-town gossip and the low hum of sexism that threatens to rear its head again and again. It's a standard culture-clash setup. When 27-year-old Stefanie Berghoff fails to come home from a jog, it sparks an enormous search for her. Her husband, Tobias (David Richter), could only look more shifty if he started waving around a murder weapon and winking at the camera, but surprisingly, he has a rock-solid alibi. The hunt for Stefanie is complicated by the fact that the entire village has been out to help, even before the police manage to arrive in the area, which means evidence could have been trampled. Kramer is not having any of it. Given the title, and the fact that 'Murders' is not singular, it isn't much of a spoiler to say that Stefanie's body is discovered, and towards the end of the first episode, so is that of another young woman. Both were killed and moved a short distance, leaving 'drag marks', a small detail that I found particularly horrible. The question is whether the two cases are connected. I tend to judge dramas about the violent deaths of women by how much the camera lingers on their naked bodies during the inevitable autopsy scenes, but this is not that kind of drama. It avoids salaciousness, seemingly as a matter of principle. In many ways, The Black Forest Murders shares a modus operandi with The Breakthrough, the Swedish procedural, also based on real-life events, that was a hit on Netflix at the start of the year. Like The Breakthrough, this has a linear and essentially straightforward narrative: crimes are committed, the police investigate, gather up all the evidence they can find, and then we get our answers. Kramer notes that it could be a long road, and tells a story about a 12-year hunt for a killer in Berlin. The drama is essentially forewarning viewers to settle in for the long haul. So we see officers carefully combing the branches of a shrub, under a magnifying glass, in the hope that they might find a speck of something that could offer up DNA. Suspects are interviewed and eliminated, based on rough times of death, which is ascertained in Stefanie's case through the contents of her stomach, the time that her phone stopped working and reports of screams. On the other hand, Kramer counters her own list of evidence, explaining the flaws, or the counterarguments, in the information that has been gathered. Perhaps Stefanie ate later than usual? Perhaps her phone battery died? Perhaps those who heard a scream got it wrong? Something isn't adding up, but over the first two episodes, it's not clear what's wrong, or why. The levels of precision and detail that worked in The Breakthrough's favour are not quite as convincing here. Partly, that is because The Black Forest Murder's tropes are familiar and well worn. There is the conflict between rural and urban, between village and city. There is the outsider looking in, who has her own past to contend with, and must relearn the local knowledge that she has lost. There is even a bit of the female boss being undermined by her male colleagues, Prime Suspect-style. Its attention to every single moving part means that the drama itself moves very slowly, and it is not so much a thriller as a satisfying puzzle, steadily coming together. Not a bad drama, then, but not a revolutionary one, either. The Black Forest Murders aired on BBC Four and is available on iPlayer
SBS Australia
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- SBS Australia
Our movie of the month: First Snow of Summer
SBS on Demand is a treasure trove of international films in the original language. Also new on SBS on Demand: Black Forest Murders. A small town in the Black Forest is shaken by two murders of young women. Exciting mini crime series that is also not afraid to let residents and investigating police speak the local dialect.
SBS Australia
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- SBS Australia
A meticulous hunt for a killer: 'Black Forest Murders'
Nina Kunzendorf as Chief Inspector Barbara Kramer in 'The Black Forest Murders'. Credit: Luis Zeno Kuhn Catching a murderer can mean chasing the shakiest of leads, the smallest of details – and doing it again and again. Such is the case in Black Forest Murders , a four-part German miniseries directed by Stefan Krohmer that follows the police hunt after a young women is killed while out jogging. The evidence is scarce as Chief Inspector Barbara Kramer (Nina Kunzendorf, whose CV includes , also streaming at SBS On Demand) and her colleague Thomas Riedle (Tilman Strauß) begin an investigation; soon, a second murder rocks the region, sparking fears of a serial killer. Is it connected? New leads, a much bigger area to overview: it all adds to the enormous task facing Kramer and her team, and public pressure to find answers grows. Riedle, in particular, feels the desperation of the locals: he grew up in the area and knows almost everyone in the village where the victim lived. Kramer, on the other hand, heads the criminal investigation unit of a neighouring city. Well regarded by her colleagues, she brings an outsider's eye to the investigation. While some crime dramas balance the 'whodunnit' with the investigator's personal struggles, Black Forest Murders takes us into the heart of the investigation. There are no traumas chasing Kramer and Kunzendorf found this appealing. "She's not a typical TV crime detective. Barbara doesn't have an extensive backstory or have to deal with personal trauma; her investigation is the focus. Not everything is recounted in great detail. I like that a lot, because it gave me and the audience room for interpretation," she has said in a German magazine interview . While the investigators are fictional characters, the storyline is inspired, in part, by real-life events, and a about them by a former police press spokesman, Walter (Walther) Roth. Writers Robert Hammel and Martina Mouchot say they were fascinated by how the book portrayed the exacting and meticulous nature of the work involved in trying to solve the murders of three young women. "Four years ago, I read about these crimes and the investigations in Walther Roth's non-fiction book Soko Erle and found the events so moving and the work of the police and forensic scientists so admirable that I thought: This has to be made into a film," Hummel has of the origins of the project. We were fascinated by how persistently and how much time and effort the police put into their investigation: every lead was followed, national borders were crossed Martina Mouchot came on board as co-writer for the project, which developed into a four-part series. "In this remarkable book, Roth describes in detail the meticulous and ultimately successful search for the murderers of three young women from his perspective as a police press spokesman. We were fascinated by how persistently and how much time and effort the police put into their investigation: every lead was followed, national borders were crossed, and numerous overtime hours were put in to solve the crimes," the pair say in a joint statement about the series. "We were very quickly able to impress the experienced producer Nils Dünker, who worked with us to formulate the narrative in a committed and competent manner: We wanted to fictionalise the crimes in a classic way, but portray the police work in a detailed and realistic way. This means that we traced the investigations, but invented our investigators and their backgrounds. We also invented the locations. We also changed the order of the murder cases and alienated the victims and families. "We did not want to exploit the suffering of the victims and their families in the media, nor did we want to give the perpetrators too much attention, out of respect for the environment and to protect the dignity of the people involved. In the points where we were concerned with adapting and changing the material, we turned to a case analyst, a professor of forensic medicine and research contacts with a criminalistic background with our questions in order to do justice to the claim of realism beyond the literary original." In the series, the murders cross international lines: a clue in one of the German murders leads the team to the similar case involving the death, four years earlier, of another young woman in Austria. As the days tick on, the team continue trying to tie it all together. "In contrast to conventional crime novels, we were concerned with meticulous, real and at the same time laborious, slow and irritating detail work: DNA cannot be analysed in a few hours, crime scenes are subject to a variety of influences, many witness statements are of no use, numerous clues turn out to be dead ends," the writers say. Telling the story as a mini-series, rather than a film, was the answer to showing the dedicated chase. "...We were able to give the effort of the investigations ... the tenacious perseverance, but also the astonishing and liberating twists in these cases, the necessary narrative space." The team investigating the real-life 2016 murder had to sift through. Black Forest Murders gives us a glimpse of how determined police work can find an answer among all the dead ends and details. Black Forest Murders season 1 premieres Thursday 8 May on SBS On Demand. Share this with family and friends SBS's award winning companion podcast. Join host Yumi Stynes for Seen, a new SBS podcast about cultural creatives who have risen to excellence despite a role-model vacuum.
SBS Australia
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- SBS Australia
Top new series coming to SBS On Demand in May 2025
L-R: Go-Jo from Eurovision 2025, Who Do You Think You Are?, The Veil and Dark Winds. Sherlock & Daughter, season 1 Black Forest Murders, season 1 Who Do You Think You Are?, season 16 Eurovision Song Contest 2025 The Man Who Died, season 2 Couples Therapy, season 4, part 2 Sherlock Holmes finds himself in a most unusual state: extortion. He is stymied, unable to investigate a recent spate of high-profile kidnappings lest he incur the wrath of a mysterious criminal syndicate who have taken hostage his dearest friends, Doctor Watson and Mrs. Hudson. Meanwhile, a young American woman named Amelia Rojas travels across the world after a murder in her home in California, intent on meeting the famed detective with whom she claims a startling connection. When this strange young woman shows up on his doorstep, Sherlock must determine whether she is a threat, an asset, or, somehow, family. Sherlock & Daughter premieres Thursday 8 May on SBS and SBS On Demand. Episodes air weekly at SBS starting Thursday 8 May at 9.30pm. A young woman goes missing. After an intensive search, her body is found, beaten to death by a stranger. Detective Barbara Kramer from the police in Lauburg, Baden-Württemberg, and her team begin the search for the perpetrator, talking to witnesses and gathering evidence. Although the team grows into a large special investigation unit, securing hundreds of leads and trying to make connections, the investigation seems to lead nowhere. In addition, the special unit must deal with a second murder, of which it is not clear whether and how it is related to the first. And parallels to a similar case in Austria that took place four years earlier become apparent. Under the eyes of a worried public, the police officers have to keep asking themselves whether any new information can be expected and where it can be found. Nevertheless, the pressure of the investigation is maintained for months. Their persistence is finally rewarded: decisive clues are consolidated into evidence. Arrests can be made and the conclusion of the police work helps the region to come to terms with the tragic events. Black Forest Murders season 1 premieres Thursday 8 May on SBS On Demand. The Italian Grand Tour comes once again to SBS VICELAND and SBS On Demand in 2025 with the notoriously steep slopes of the Alps, Dolomites and Apennines all set to feature, with coverage of every pedal stroke. A stellar line-up of general classification contenders headlines this year's Italian Grand Tour, with Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe's two-pronged attack of previous Giro champions Primoz Roglic and Aussie Jai Hindley set to feature in May. The route features two time trials, four flat and seven mountain stages after its start in Albania, with tough climbs in the south of Italy and the steep San Pellegrino in Alpe in the Tuscan Apennines. All races for the Giro d'Italia premiere live on SBS VICELAND and will be live-streamed on SBS On Demand from Friday 9 May - Sunday 1 June. You can catch live streams, full replays, and the winning moment from every stage on SBS On Demand. Seven participants, each with their own set of special skills, are flown into the harsh nature of Lapland, 300 km north of the Arctic Circle. Armed with bows, arrows, fishing rods, axes and stubbornness, the survivalists of Alone Denmark season 8 must build their own homes and provide their own food. However, early on in the competition, the journey takes a surprise turn. This year promises to be colder, tougher and more extreme than ever before. Alone Denmark premieres Monday 12 May on SBS VICELAND and SBS On Demand with weekly triple episodes. Episodes air weekly at SBS VICELAND starting Monday 12 May at 6pm. The cast of season 16 of this much-loved series includes Tom Gleeson, Patrick Brammall, Camilla Franks, Gina Chick, Matt Nable, Claudia Karvan, Mark Coles Smith and Marc Fennell. We join them on their individual journeys around Australia and overseas in search of previously undiscovered family histories. From the wilds of the Kimberley, across Australia, New Zealand, and to central Europe where the first shots were fired in World War Two, our celebrity detectives dig deep and find profound stories of love, loss and survival. Who Do You Think You Are? season 16 premieres Tuesday 13 May on SBS and SBS On Demand. Episodes air weekly at SBS starting Tuesday 13 May at 7.30pm. Who Do You Think You Are? Australia This year's Eurovision Song Contest will be taking place in St. Jakobshalle, Basel, Switzerland. There's a huge range of songs, styles and staging coming our way during two semi-finals and the electrifying grand final. Go-Jo will be representing Australia with his brilliant and bouncy track "Milkshake Man". This year marks the 10-year anniversary of Australia's participation in the Eurovision Song Contest. SBS's exclusive broadcast of Eurovision 2025 is LIVE and in prime time from Wednesday 14 May – Sunday 18 May on SBS and SBS On Demand. Further details of SBS's broadcast will follow soon. Dark Winds follows Joe Leaphorn, Jim Chee, and Bernadette Manuelito of the Navajo Tribal Police solving mysteries and serving justice as their reservation is besieged by a series of increasingly violent crimes in the 1970s. Every mystery uncovers old wounds that run deep, not only in their own lives, but in the collective past of the community they serve. Each step closer to the truth forces the officers to confront their own personal demons, family trauma, and evil forces that threaten the uneasy balance of reservation life. In the third season, Leaphorn and Chee seek justice in the mysterious disappearance of a Navajo boy, while an FBI agent looks into a case linked to Leaphorn's recent past. Meanwhile, Manuelito unearths a conspiracy on the border with far-reaching implications. Dark Winds season 3 premieres Thursday 15 May on SBS On Demand. Finnish Mushroom entrepreneur Jaakko sleepwalks through life until a dodgy diagnosis, an affair and threats from the local mushroom mafia turn his world upside down. In the second season of this Finnish crime drama, loyalties are tested and the mushroom business is at risk of being taken over by Stella Lampinen, the Lingonberry Queen. The Man Who Died season 2 premieres Thursday 22 May on SBS On Demand. Couples Therapy follows world-renowned psychologist and psychoanalyst Dr. Orna Guralnik as she deftly guides couples through real-life therapy sessions. The series brings viewers into the intimate sessions to witness the conflicts – and extraordinary breakthroughs – typically hidden behind closed doors. The second part of season four invites viewers back to the couch, where Dr. Orna Guralnik navigates a thorny brew of recriminations, conflict and painful truths with four new couples. Guralnik delves into the crisis of a deaf man and his hearing partner torn between sexual freedom and commitment, a young couple haunted by trauma and buried secrets, a long-married pair trapped in cycles of bickering and avoidance and a therapist-writer duo locked in a zero-sum battle of sacrifice and grievance that pushes Orna to question her own methods. Couples Therapy season 4, part two premieres Monday 26 May on SBS VICELAND and SBS On Demand. Episodes air weekly at SBS VICELAND starting Monday 26 May at 10.45pm. Starring Elisabeth Moss, The Veil is a spy thriller that explores the surprising and fraught relationship between two women who play a deadly game of truth and lies on the road from Istanbul to Paris and London. One woman has a secret, the other a mission to reveal it before thousands of lives are lost. In the shadows, the CIA and French DGSE must work together to avert potential disaster. The Veil season 1 premieres Tuesday 27 May on SBS On Demand. Episodes air weekly at SBS starting Wednesday 4 June at 9.30pm. Powerful new documentary series, Our Medicine, takes viewers behind the frontline of Australia's strained medical services, shining an important light on First Nations professionals working to achieve better health outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients and communities. Narrated by screen icon Leah Purcell AM, the groundbreaking series offers unique access to First Nations doctors, nurses, paramedics, traditional healers and other medical professionals, following their day-to-day challenges as they support patients on their journey through the system. Our Medicine premieres Thursday 29 May on NITV and SBS On Demand, with weekly double episodes. Episodes air weekly at NITV starting Thursday 29 May at 7.30pm. Share this with family and friends SBS's award winning companion podcast. Join host Yumi Stynes for Seen, a new SBS podcast about cultural creatives who have risen to excellence despite a role-model vacuum.
