Die Kuh, die weint

Chief Inspector Acham had actually only planned to visit her close friend Martina Schober, a police officer in the small town of Sattendorf on the northern shore of Lake Ossiach. But not only has her friend just fallen in love with a colleague—making Acham’s nights on Martina’s couch rather restless—the young Italian woman Ludovica, who was renting a room with the Pichler family, has also gone missing. When the student is later found dead in the nearby mountain forest, Acham extends her stay without further ado, and the two women begin investigating together, both in the valley and up on the alpine pastures. Pia Hierzegger’s screenplay takes the emotional lives of its characters seriously, while Andreas Prochaska’s direction blends elements of horror into the investigation. On false trails one moves toward the truth—and in the end, it is those who dare who prevail.