A rollercoaster tycoon's cocaine smuggling scheme destroys his family. Real life beats crime fiction.
Norbert Witte, once the king of the only amusement park of the former GDR, today he is behind bars in Germany. When fleeing bankruptcy in Berlin, Norbert Witte and his family secretly shipped their rollercoasters to Peru. Things went wrong here too. In a desperate attempt, Norbert tried to smuggle cocaine to Germany. Three years later his 23 years old son Marcel was sentenced to 20 years in a Peruvian prison. Now the father is doing everything he can in order to free his son.
Direction
Dörfler lets the Witte family hang themselves with their own words.
Production
Rare archival footage of GDR amusement park glory days.
Director
Peter Dörfler
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The Spreepark Berlin rides Norbert shipped to Peru sat rusting in Lima for years; some were later recovered and became urban exploration legends.
The film captures a specific post-reunification German tragedy: East Germans who gambled everything on capitalism and lost, then kept doubling down.
DE
