The Barber and the Bomb

The film tells the story of the nail bomb attack executed in Cologne on Keup Street in 2004 and focuses on its ongoing repercussions and the victims of the attack. It takes seven years until the attackers are identified: right-wing terrorists of the self-proclaimed National Socialist Underground. For years Keup Street and its victims (a community with an immigrant background) are being kept under surveillance. To the investigators they are not victims of terror but suspects with links to the mafia (especially hairdressser Yildirim). Authorities accumulated thousands of pages of investigation files, which are available to us and form part of the narrative structure of the film. It reveals an investigatory process that was heavily influenced by official prejudice and discrimination, as well as routine and helplessness given the unsuccessful efforts to identify the attackers.