Teenage Angst

Four pupils at an elite boarding school form a clique. At night they sneak out to drink and to play. They are searching for extreme forms of distraction in order to escape the golden cage their wealthy parents have created for them.

As time goes by, their games become increasingly violent and they begin to home in on the weakest one in the group – Leibnitz. Dyrbusch, the leader of the group, and Bogatsch, his ′henchman′, persist in tormenting Leibnitz more and more severely. Leibnitz acquiesces, partly because he can′t seem to shake off his tormentors, and partly because he doesn′t want to lose their ′friendship′ and worries about what will happen if his parents find out. Konstantin, the group′s fellow-traveller, is the only one who is aware of the moral dimension to their actions. But he hesitates because he is reluctant to destroy the clique that is so important to the four schoolboys. And so their spiral of violence and peer pressure continues to spin out of control – until the inevitable happens …

Source: 58. Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin (Catalogue)