Reeperbahn Special Unit 65

  • Sundance
  • Berlin series
  • FF Cologne

High-end true crime docuseries REEPERBAHN SPECIAL UNIT 65 tells the story of Germany’s first-ever police unit dedicated to combat organized crime and its fight against illustrious adversaries from the Reeperbahn red-light district of the 1980s.

Year

2022

Length

5 x 45 min.

Director

Georg Tschurtschenthaler, Carsten Gutschmidt &
Ina Kessebohm

Synopsis

Embedded into the turbulent history of the 1980s with HIV epidemic, cocaine wave and Ronald Reagan’s fight against organized crime, five-episode true crime series REEPERBAHN SPECIAL UNIT 65 tells the story of Germany’s first police unit dedicated to fight organized crime – legendary Special Unit 65 – and its cat-and-mouse game with illustrious adversaries: the ‘Godfather of Reeperbahn’ Wilfrid Schulz, the US Mafia and corrupt police officers (episodes 1 & 2), rivaling pimp gangs (episode 3), Hells Angels and youth gangs (episode 4) as well as serial killer Werner Pinzner, whose murderous spree seems mind-blowing to this very day and who shoots directly into the heart of Special Unit 65 (episode 5).

The series is set in the 1980s amidst Hamburg’s notoriously famous Reeperbahn red-light-district, which has been coined “the planet’s most sinful mile” and second most famous street after Wall Street.

REEPERBAHN SPECIAL UNIT 65 was developed and produced by gebrueder beetz filmproduktion on behalf of German broadcasters NDR, WDR, SWR and RBB for ARD together with co-producer and international distribution partner STUDIO HAMBURG ENTERPRISES. It is the first documentary project to be supported by the prestigious German Motion Picture Fund (GMPF), which had previously exclusively funded high-profile fictional series such as “Babylon Berlin” and “The Queen’s Gambit”.

Directors
Georg Tschurtschenthaler, Carsten Gutschmidt & Ina Kessebohm

Cinematography
Matthias Bolliger

Editors
André Nier, Sarah-Christin Peter

Producer
Florian Fettweis

Executive Producer
Kathrin Isberner

A gebrueder beetz filmproduktion production
In Coproduktion with Studio Hamburg Enterprises
Produced by NDR, SWR, WDR and rbb for ARD
Funded by GMPF, MOIN Filmförderung, nordmedia – Film- und Mediengesellschaft Niedersachsen/Bremen mbH

The Cleaners
88 min
Trailer
  • „Just in diesem Moment überraschen uns die aus dem Theaterbereich stammenden jungen Regisseure Hans Block und Moritz Riesewieck mit einem erstaunlichen Dokumentarfilm, der seit Monaten Publikum und Kritik auf den wichtigsten Festivals der Welt elektrisiert. Völlig zu Recht: Es ist, als würden einem die Scheuklappen weggerissen, als sähe man das, was sich seit Jahren direkt vor unseren Augen abspielt, zum ersten Mal unverschleiert... eine fesselnde ,Doku noir' mit höchstem Anspruch...Dieser Film müsste an allen Schulen gezeigt werden.“
    Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
    17.05.2018

In co-production with

In association with

Funded by