Between September 16 and 18, 1982, between 1,000 and 3,000 Palestinian civilians, predominantly women, children and old people, were murdered in the two Lebanese Palestinian camps Sabra and Shatila. The exact number of victims has never been determined. The perpetrators primarily originated from the ranks of the Forces Libanaises, Christian militia affiliated to Israel. The logistics for this massacre were provided by the Israeli Army, under the auspices of the former Minister of Defence and current Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon. In 1982, the massacre in the Lebanese Palestinian camps deeply shook the public throughout the world, but today it has been almost entirely forgotten. This is despite the fact that it is a role model for all the massacres that followed: for example that in Rwanda or those committed during the Yugoslavian wars. Again and again, the unanswered questions surface: what drives people to such excesses of brutality, and how are the perpetrators able to live on? Massaker is  both in contents and aesthetically  a psycho-political study of six perpetrators, who participated in the massacre of Sabra and Shatila both on orders and on their own personal initiative. The film intertwines the mental dispositions of the killers with their political environment and broaches the phenomenon of collective violence through their accounts. > Download film flyer		Documentary, 2005 96 min., 35mm Original version: Arab Written & directed by: Monika Borgmann, Lokman Slim & Hermann Theissen Photography: Nina Menkes Editor: Anne de Mo and Bernd Euscher Music: FM Einheit Premiere: February 2005 Festivals: (selection) Berlinale; Visions du Réel, Nyon; Festival du Film, La Rochelle; Marseille Documentary Film Festival; Melbourne International Film Festival; San Francisco Jewish Film Festival; Women's Film Festival, Ramallah; Viennale, Vienna; Denver International Film Festival Awards: FIPRESCI Award, Berlin; Prix SRG SSR idée suisse; Special Citation, Denver Production: Lichtblick Film Co-production: Dschoint Ventschr Filmproduktion; SF DRS; Umam Production (Libanon); Unlimited (Frankreich) Producer: Joachim Ortmanns Commissioning editors: Paul Riniker (SF DRS); Werner Dütsch (WDR) World rights: Lichtblick Film