Diese Sendung ist kein Spiel – die unheimliche Welt des Eduard Zimmerman

West Germany at the end of the 1960s: the Adenauer era is on its last legs. Robbery and violent crime are on the rise. Soon the country is governed by the SPD, conservative forces become nervous: women want the pill and divorce, the RAF shakes society, the '68ers dominate the discourse. On October 20, 1967, the show “Aktenzeichen XY .... ungelöst” was broadcast for the first time on Second German Television. 38-year-old journalist Eduard Zimmermann produced and hosted the show until 1997. The world's first true crime format was born and with it interactive television.

Director Regina Schilling has collected a wealth of material on criminal cases from 300 “Aktenzeichen XY... ungelöst” broadcasts, from the Adenauer era to the 1990s, from the archive and categorized it from her personal perspective: On the surface, the TV material tells of crime investigation and prevention, of the people who became victims. From the historical distance, the director comes to a deeper conclusion: Eduard Zimmermann's broadcasts convey cinematically normative images of social order. In retrospect, they convey strikingly clear values and world views - about criminology and technology, work and family, women and men, media and minorities, perpetrators and victims such as homosexuals, girls and prostitutes.

Following her film “Kulenkampff's Shoes” (ARD, 2018), in which she analyzed the entertainment television of the post-war era, the director once again revives the visual and living worlds of TV back then.