Karl Schönherr

Two men and one woman are involved in a dramatic triangle between love and passion, transgression and betrayal. Florian Flicker has set Karl Schönherr's "Der Weibsteufel" in Austria's borderland shortly after the turn of the last century. In the remote swamps next to the March River, Hans and Jana are living in a criminal idyll that comes tumbling down when a young soldier enters the picture.

In the year 1810, the Tyrol is suffering under French occupation. A servant, who believes himself oppressed and disenfranchised by the peasants, dreams of being allowed to play Christ in the yearly Passion Play. Instead, he is forced to play Judas and soon the lines of reality blur: he betrays the location of Andreas Hofer, hidden by the farmers, breaks under the weight of his guilt and suffers Judas' fate.

An old smuggler and fence wants to use his very young and beautiful wife to find out about the plans of the new, ambitious border policeman. With somnambulistic certainty, she pulls out all the stops of female seduction. The man's clever move seems to be successful. But the young woman's game becomes serious. She falls in love with the vital man who makes her aware of her sexual frustration and the failed joy of motherhood. When her husband sees through the true circumstances and the young woman has to realize that her lover has also abused her as an informant, the catastrophe can no longer be stopped.