Berlinale 2026: ‘Prosecution’ is a Lean, Mean, Gripping Legal Thriller

by Alex Billington
February 21, 2026

Most of the best films in this decade take a simplistic, important premise and elevate it with creative, clever filmmaking choices. It’s not just about telling a story – anyone can do that. It’s about how you tell the story, how you utilizing cinematic techniques to make it into something more, how cinema can turn a simple story into something truly profound. And potentially impactful, if the right audience watches it. Prosecution is one of the best modern legal thrillers I’ve seen this decade. This German film premiered at the 2026 Berlin Film Festival (and won an Audience Award) in the Panorama section. While it is ostensibly about Germany and their broken, corrupt justice system (despite continuous claims that it is the most objective) it is also a universal story about the corruption & injustice found in any country. It’s literally about racism and how racism is often covered up, white-washed away, written off as just normal people not being bad. They didn’t mean any harm! But racism needs to be confronted and dealt with directly – and boy oh boy does this film confront it. Prosecution is a gripping, badass, fascinating story about one woman getting justice at any cost.

Prosecution, originally titled Staatsschutz in German, is directed by a young German filmmaker named Faraz Shariat from Cologne. His grandparents are Iranian and he has an obvious, inherent understanding of racism & injustice in Germany. The screenplay is by Claudia Schaefer, Jee-Un Kim, and Dr. Sun-Ju Choi. Chen Emilie Yan stars as a German-Korean woman named Seyo Kim who works at as a state prosecutor for the government in her city. She has seen too many racist Germans get off easy despite their great harm. It all comes home when one day while riding her bicycle she is attacked in a hate crime. This event turns her into a vigilante for justice – stopping at nothing, confronting her superiors, challenging anyone & everyone who gets in her way. Even though she’s told she must stay away from investigating her own case, she can’t help herself, and dives into it – with scenes reminiscent of Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo or Zodiac. Yes it’s all a bit dramatized, turning the film from just a simple drama into an full-on genre thriller. She’s on a mission to get justice and because she knows the ins & outs of the German courts, laws, justice system, she knows exactly what is necessary and vitally important to properly collect & present as the right evidence to send these racist jerks to prison. Which, believe it or not, is considerably hard to do in Germany.

I am impressed by every single aspect of this film. Right from the start, it’s easy to tell we’re in good hands with this filmmaker. Even the choices he makes with the title card & red text graphics that appear on screen introducing us to his Staatsschutz film are slick. He knows he has an important story to tell but also knows how to tell this story with cinematic flair. The cinematography from DP Lotta Kilian is riveting, using long lenses and distinct wide shots as they follow Seyo around. There’s absolutely nothing about this film that is dull or boring, that’s part of what makes it so engaging to watch. While it isn’t the first film about injustice, about racism, about broken judicial systems, and so on, it stands out from the crowd because Faraz Shariat is such a gifted filmmaker in addition to being a vivid storyteller. His visual choices and his understanding of cinema as a visual narrative are beyond impressive – this is a filmmaker I can’t wait to watch more from as he keeps making more provocative films. The pacing & editing is also especially fascinating (it’s edited by Friederike Hohmuth). While much of the film is obviously set in a court room, they also make an active choice to take us out of the court and follow Seyo as she goes about her investigation, meets with friends and family, and has to deal with regular life under a constant racist threat. It’s nearly 2 hours but never feels that long at all – most importantly it takes us on an invigorating legal thriller journey to a very satisfying finale.

One other choice Faraz Shariat makes is to heighten the drama into genre movie mania at times. There are a handful of court room scenes that seem blatantly unrealistic – they turn into a full-on circus, with general public spectators hooting & hollering & cheering when the judge says something. There’s even a scene where someone sitting back there gets accused and they’re not even allowed to leave. None of this seems real, but I don’t mind because it’s part of the thrill of watching this story play out. There’s a moment where the movie drifts over into Batman territory. Seyo embracing “vigilante justice” becomes a more accurate reference when she basically becomes Germany’s Batman – She is the Dark Knight of racism in Deutschland, and her goal is to make the racists & neo-Nazis fearful of justice, not the other way around. Seyo also crosses the line a few times becoming so cold and careless in her pursuit of justice that she nearly becomes unlikable as a person. But that’s also part of the thrill, and part of the storytelling following her journey, and eventually it doesn’t matter because she’s so badass and she’s so good at getting the job done in court it doesn’t matter if this is what it takes. By the end, I was totally amped up, inspired & encouraged by a real possibility of hope.

Alex’s Berlinale 2026 Rating: 9 out of 10
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