Who Am I

Benjamin, a socially invisible programmer in Berlin, forms a hacker group called CLAY with three others. What starts as pranks escalates until they target the German intelligence service. The film is told through Benjamin's statement to Europol agent Hanne Lindberg. What emerges at the end is that he has dissociative identity disorder and the others are imaginary. Then it turns again: he has deliberately left holes in his account, Hanne spots them and works out the truth, and gives him witness protection anyway. Baran bo Odar directed. Tom Schilling plays Benjamin, with Elyas M'Barek, Hannah Herzsprung and Wotan Wilke Möhring as the other three. Its most memorable visual solution is how it shows the darknet: anonymous meetings online are staged as a subway carriage full of people in masks. Comparisons went mostly to Fight Club and Mr. Robot. It won three German Movie Awards and a Bambi for Best German Film. The director deliberately left it unresolved whether the friends ever existed. Who it is for: viewers who like thrillers with a turn and hacker stories. Who it is not for: anyone wanting technical accuracy. The hacking is representational, and for viewers who guess the twist the second half loses its grip.