Hugofilm, Wüste Film West and Constantin Film are gathering their collective might to produce a film based on the 2006 novel Tannöd by German author Andrea Maria Schenkel. The story of the novel was based on a real event dating back to 1922 - Hinterkaifeck, where a family- a husband, his wife, their daughter, her two children and the maid- were all brutally murdered with a pickaxe. That crime remains unsolved. Schenkel used that event as inspiration for her own retelling of that story and sets it in post-war 1950s Germany.
Swiss filmmaker Bettina Oberli [North Wind and Late Bloomers] will be at the helm. Bettina also co-wrote the adapted screenplay with Petra Lüschow. Near as I can tell from reviews of the book it reads more like investigative journalism; along with a straight narrative of the events it also includes transcripts as eye witness accounts are recorded, not witnesses of the murder - there were none, but witnesses of the Danner family and the strains and tensions that existed within it. In one review I read the accounts include stories full of rape, incest, suicide, brutality and deception. Add a dash of religious poetry to the mix and by all accounts it makes for a very unsettling yet engrossing read.
Done right this could be could one of those films that effectively balances the horrors of the murders with the horrors revealed in the secretive lives, emotions and motives of the Danner family.
It should be noted that there is already a film titled Kaifeck Murder in post expected to be released early January 2009 in Germany.