When his violent brother Mirko is released from prison early, Kai suddenly finds himself caught up in a mad race against the clock. The reason: Kai owes Mirko money – lots of money. The problem is, he already spent it. Welcome to the world of Kai – husband, father and worker in a meat processing plant in Germany’s Ruhrgebiet. In his attempts to settle his debts, Kai gets swept up in a fatal vortex of violence, while the clock in the background ticks away menacingly.

With his third film, Damian John Harper succeeds in creating a breathless, authentic, lurid drama about two very dissimilar brothers in the Wild West of the Ruhrpott, played by Louis Hofmann and new big-screen discovery Franz Pätzold. This bitter and brutal brotherly ballad is based on the award-winning novel “Fresh” by Mark McNay.

Damian John Harper was born in 1978 in Boulder/Colorado in the USA. After graduating magna cum laude with a B.A. in anthropology, he worked as an ethnologist with the Zapotecs in Oaxaca in southern Mexico and later as a cave diving instructor in Brazil. In 2012, he completed his directing studies at the University of Film and Television Munich (HFF). He returned to the Mexican village with his feature-film debut LOS ÁNGELES. The film won many prizes, including the Best First Feature Award at the Guadalajara International Film Festival and the First Steps Award. He is currently developing feature films for cinema and television.

Filmography (selection): 2011 TEARDROP (short film), 2014 LOS ÁNGELES, 2018 IN THE MIDDLE OF THE RIVER, 2019 9 TAGE WACH (TV drama), 2024 FRISCH; WOODWALKERS