“Emmett − Tief in meinem Herzen” (“Emmett – Deep in My Heart”) is a film with theatrical elements, telling the story of the 14-year-old Black teenager Emmett Till, who became the victim of a racist murder in Mississippi, USA, in 1955. This murder is considered the spark for the civil rights movement in the USA as well as a global, public-media confrontation with racism.
Emmett’s story is not an exclusively Black or American story. Emmett had to die because he (allegedly) whistled after a White woman, while his killers were acquitted by an all-male, all-White jury, only to openly admit to the murder in an interview a short time later. “Cases like Emmett's are repeated in Germany and around the world. They affect us all – they are the stories of each and every one of us. Almost 70 years after Emmett Till’s murder, we live in a world that is still shaped by structural racism.
Like the majority of modern-day farm men in the US, Kurt is out of work, unable to provide for his family. Smothered by a sense of void and hopelessness, he takes to the road, in a quest for his lost self-esteem. An existential journey of disenchantment that cuts right through the soul of the American inland, juxtaposing the shiny promises of the past with the harsh reality of a bleached-out Dream.
On a bleak island where monolithic concrete buildings rise above the windswept horizon lies work-colony #191286. Piwonka is one of a handful of migrant workers who are forced to work here under harsh conditions. He has been estranged for two months from his beloved wife when a fatal incident at the main drilling-tower occurs. Piwonka has a recurring dream of his wife where it feels like she's trying to communicate with him, to warn him perhaps, or guide his way.
Jakob, a young policeman from a remote village, has his world unhinged when a stranger in a dress emerges from the forest and begins killing villagers with a sword.
Real estate agent Christian travels the countryside scouting for investment prospects. In a forgotten, seemingly abandoned village far off the main roads, he finds more than he is looking for. Getting entangled in an encounter with a taciturn teenage farmhand, he confronts his sexual frustrations and, in the process, gets drawn into the undergrowth of a bloodthirsty rustic community.
