The ARD series about the blind Berlin lawyer “Die Heiland” is a hit. Now it’s into the third season.
Berlin – The Savior is back. Right at the start, the Berlin lawyer rushed over the asphalt at high speed behind the wheel of a car. Yet she is blind.
Still, there is no danger. It is also a test track on an action day for people without eyesight. The TV lawyer (Christina Athenstädt) has to deal with an equally blind young man who is said to have caused a serious accident while driving in big city traffic. Then the third season of the popular crime series “The Savior – We Are Lawyers” starts in the first. “Knocked out!” Is the name of the case.
Romy Heiland doubts the guilt of her client Viktor Klimov (Oskar Bökelmann), who lives with his vodka-loving mother (Malina Ebert) and his teenage sister (Virginia Leithäuser) in a prefabricated building. The aggressive and lazy Viktor only recently lost his eyesight – in a fight that was supposed to be an important step in his previously very successful career in boxing. Equipped with her clever head and white white cane, mostly on the arm of her smart assistant Ada Holländer (Anna Fischer), the rather fine lawyer sets out into strange milieus to find the real culprit.
In addition, Romy has to deal with the impending divorce of her parents (Peggy Lukac and Rüdiger Kuhlbrodt). And with the men in her life: her lover, the public prosecutor Rudi Illic (Aleksandar Jovanovic), as well as her ex Ben Ritter (Athenstadt’s husband and colleague Peter Fieseler), who suddenly appears again. Director Jan Bauer staged all of this in an entertaining way, based on the script by Stefan Barth. Olga Film’s production was commissioned by ARD under the leadership of RBB.
For the main actress, who acts sensitively and sympathetically, the third crime series is only her second. Because after the sudden death of the first Heiland actress Lisa Martinek at the age of 47 in the summer of 2019, Athenstädt took over the TV part, which was created based on the model of the real Berlin criminal defense attorney Pamela Pabst.
In her embodiment of a professionally and privately independent and successful woman who cannot see, Athenstädt – like Martinek before – was coached by Pabst. “In the third season, I was more secure. From a technical point of view, I no longer had to pay attention to the fact that my character was blind, it has become more or less automated, ”said the Berlin actress in an interview with the German Press Agency about her experiences. “In the meantime – after all the consequences – I’m sometimes even afraid that I can’t do anything else. That I might not even look properly in another role. “
The 42-year-old depicts blindness using an acting technique that comes from the USA. “I work very physically with something called an“ imaginary center ”,” reveals Athenstädt. You imagine a point behind your head – that changes the way you see. In doing so, everything in front of her would be very blurred or not even noticeable. Her Romy confidently uses the white stick, but also the arm of her assistant. “I took it over from Pamela Pabst one-on-one,” says the actress.
Athenstädt explains that she has also learned a lot from the role model: “What she does as a lawyer – and how she finds her way around as a blind person. She is an incredibly brave person. If I hadn’t gotten to know her, as an actress I wouldn’t have dared to act so much alone as a blind man. “
For Pabst, who is a specialist lawyer in criminal and enforcement law in real life, the tasks are not finished yet. “In addition to my normal job, it is a great hobby, so to speak, that is also financed,” the 43-year-old tells the dpa on the phone. And explains: “I have to take good care of the people, that makes work. So I get all the scripts, sometimes even several times, because there are always changes. I also have to say what works legally and specifically for blind people and what doesn’t. “
Pabst gives an example: “If you call out“ Your honor ”and“ Objection ”in court, then I will cross that out of the scripts. Because I want it to be as realistic as humanly possible. ”Dpa
