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The timing of this world premiere couldn’t be more appropriate: an important film about the work of the International Criminal Court (ICC), whose effectiveness will shape our future.
This film focuses on Luis Moreno Ocampo (the ICC’s first chief prosecutor), alongside prosecutors such as Benjamin Ferencz (prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials) and the ICC’s current chief prosecutor, Karim Khan. Looming over all this is the question: Can wars of aggression ever be litigated if the world’s great powers remain unwilling to recognize the ICC as a global court?
Meet the director
Marcus Vetter, Michele Gentile
Marcus Vetter, born in Stuttgart in 1967, was a freelance editor and writer at SWR after graduating from college. He began making his own films starting in 1997. Since 2006, Vetter has been shooting and producing films for his production company, Filmperspektive. His films received a great deal of attention at national and international film festivals. The TV docudrama DER TUNNEL, about a spectacular escape from East Germany in 1961, received the German Television Award as well as the Grimme-Preis in 2000. The subsequent ARD documentary WO DAS GELD WÄCHST (2000) and the docu-soap BROADWAY BRUCHSAL (2001) each also earned the Grimme-Preis. In the autobiographical documentary MEIN VATER, DER TÜRKE (2006), Vetter meets his father and four sisters for the first time. That film received the prestigious Prix Europa and the Golden Gate Award. This was followed by the films TRADER’S DREAMS (2006), DAS HERZ VON JENIN (2010) — which received the German Film Award — CINEMA JENIN (2010), THE COURT (2013), THE FORECASTER (2015), and DAS VERSPRECHEN (2016). While making THE FORUM (2019), Vetter and an independent film team succeeded for the first time in the 50-year history of the World Economic Forum in filming behind closed doors in Davos and documenting how the most powerful people in the world are grappling with the future.
Michele Gentile started as editor of TV series, including DR. KLEIN, SOKO STUTTGART, GROßSTADTREVIER and the main evening format on ZDF, TEAM ALPIN, in 2011. At the end of 2016, he founded the film production company “Little Big Talents Creative Media” in Reutlingen. Since 2013 Michele has worked on films including CINEMA JENIN, THE FORECASTER, THE PROMISE, THE FORUM, and THE TUNNEL by renowned documentary filmmaker Marcus Vetter as a cinematographer, editor and art director. In spring 2019, Gentile’s first short film JAMIL was released, which won numerous awards internationally, was nominated for the German Short Film Award and was awarded the rating “besonders wertvoll”. Since 2020, he has been working as director and writer on his feature film debut WITNESS 26, the story of a former child soldier who testifies as a key witness at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. His short film script “Sora No Umi The Ocean’s Emptiness,” which has not yet been filmed due to the Covid 19 pandemic, has already won more than 20 awards for best screenplay at renowned film festivals and screenplay competitions. As of June 2021, Michele is Creative Producer for the Netflix miniseries THE SOERING CASE.