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FLÜKIGER AND THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH

FLÜKIGER UND DIE SUCHE NACH DER WAHRHEIT

By Werner Swiss SCHWEIZER

DSCHOINT VENTSCHR FILMPRODUKTION - as PROD

Crime - Completed 2023

Autumn 1977: the Bernese officer trainee Flükiger is found dead. Who is to blame for his death? The RAF or the Béliers, was it an accident or intentional? The director goes in search of clues and tries to shed light on the mysterious events.

- Year of production
- 2023
- Genres
- Crime, Historical, Documentary
- Countries
- SWITZERLAND
- Director(s)
- Werner Swiss SCHWEIZER
- Writer(s)
- Werner Swiss SCHWEIZER
- Cast
- Sonja RIESEN
- Producer(s)
- Sereina GABATHULER (DSCHOINT VENTSCHR FILMPRODUKTION)
- Synopsis
- In the autumn of 1977, a series of mysterious deaths shakes French-speaking Jura region: the missing officer trainee Ruedi Flükiger is found dead, shredded by a hand grenade. Almost concurrently, the body of the German president of the employers association, H. Schleyer, who had been taken hostage by the "Red Army Faction" (RAF), is found in Mulhouse. Shortly afterwards, there is a shootout at the Fahy border crossing, during which two members of the RAF are arrested. And then the policeman in charge of investigating the deaths, A. Rychen, shoots his colleague
  R. Heusler and sends a confession letter in the style of the RAF to his own bureau.
  All this occurs shortly before a federal vote is to be held on whether the Jura region should become an independent canton. For this is the goal of Federal President Kurt Furgler, who wants this referendum to solve the Jura conflict for once and for all.
  The Flükiger affair was immediately politicized: the Bern loyalists suspected that the Béliers, the militant separatist youth organisation, had kidnapped Flükiger and that he had died in the process. The Jura separatists immediately deny this as a provocation by Bern. The press speculates on ties to German terrorism, thus playing into the hands of Furgler, who wants to create a new federal security police force to fight terrorism.
  The investigation into Flükiger's death falls by the wayside. The military and the authorities quickly draw the conclusion that he took his own life.
  In this documentary, the filmmaker follows the traces of these deaths, which remain unsolved to this day, with curiosity, critical thinking and an openness to new insights.
  He meets the Flükiger family, searches the files in the Federal Archives and tries to shed light on the mystery – fully aware that it is unlikely he will stumble on the solution to the mystery.
  Instead, it is his goal to bring one of the darkest but also most exciting chapters of our recent history closer to an interested cinema audience.