GRAF ÖDERLAND

A banker kills the building superintendent. Just like that – zack! – with an axe, for no reason. While his defense attorney, Dr. Hahn, desperately searches for a motive, prosecutor Martin capitulates before the senselessness of the crime. There’s a crack in the order of things. A murderer without motive. A justice system that just wants vacation. Martin, the guardian of law, sees his world turned upside down. On the eve of the murder trial, he burns all the case files and flees.

Enough of monotony, bourgeois confines, and the exhausting charade with his wife – who, of all people, chose Dr. Hahn as her lover. During his escape into the woods, a new identity takes hold of him. As the legendary "Count Öderland with an axe in hand," he roams the land, hacking his way mercilessly through the underworld.

More and more people follow his trail, stylizing him – Public Enemy No. 1 – into the figurehead of a diffuse rebellion of dropouts. Axe sales boom. But an axe doesn’t think. It feels no disgust. It kills. Life has become murder. Such a life no longer has a story. Pure mechanics replace responsibility. As violence escalates, the state responds with ruthless measures – until only Öderland, drifting between trance and delusion, can end the bloodshed.

With GRAF ÖDERLAND, Zug director Claudia Bossard dissects the explosive cocktail of social alienation, populism, and state failure. She crafts a nuanced psychological portrait where ego and desire ignite revolution, and the identity crisis of a middle-aged man becomes fuel that ignites the blaze.