An accident connects Konrad and Ira. The life of the homeless and the life of the cook with child seem very different. But how secure is your own bourgeois existence?
Berlin – Many people prefer to hide the homeless in everyday life. Maybe your own worries, helplessness, the desire for an ideal world or the feeling of a subliminal threat are too big.
In the social drama “On thin ice”, which ZDF is showing this Monday (September 20) from 8.15 p.m., the main character Ira can no longer close her eyes: In an underground car park in Berlin, she drives to Konrad, who is here on the cold night with his Dog has found some protection. She brings the injured person to the hospital and learns how difficult it can be to obtain necessary treatment if one does not have a civil existence with an identity card and insurance card.
Konrad (Carlo Ljubek) is looking for help from Ira (Julia Koschitz) in the future. She sees the man as an intruder – her life seems complicated enough as it is. Her husband Bernhard has left her for someone else, the job as a cook with the nightly working hours is demanding, and she wants to do justice to her nine-year-old son Lukas.
But she also experiences how negatively many people react to Konrad. In the stairwell, the neighbors complain that it stinks since “the bum” was there. And at the same time it is becoming apparent how fragile the security of bourgeois life can be – the elderly mother, for example, is looking for a new apartment, which is not an easy undertaking given the rising rents in Berlin and the scarce supply. And jobs aren’t necessarily safe.
Nobody is carefree in this intense film based on a script by Silke Zertz, directed by Sabine Bernardi. Inspiration was an encounter that producer Beatrice Kramm had years ago. A man lived on her pitch in a sheltered place for a few weeks, she says. “We tried in vain to get in touch with him and offered him help – he wanted to be left alone.” He died at minus 15 degrees, “to this day we don’t know anything about him,” she says. “With this film I want to give him a story.”
It is unclear how many people are homeless in Germany. In the first homeless census in Berlin in January 2020, around 2000 homeless people were registered there – according to the Berlin city mission, the actual number is likely to be much higher. Nationwide, the number was estimated at almost 700,000 people three years ago. More recent figures are not available. dpa
