Film makes the creative process visible by letting its narrative flow in the mind of a foreign director who is researching a film about Franz Kafka in Prague. Based on the principle of dreams and free association, segments unfold that deal with the various points of view that Kafka's work, personality and fate offer. In the labyrinth of his mind, the fictional director projects himself into situations from the author's life, with Kafka himself as his guide. At the same time, he delves into the history of the persecution of the Jews and glimpses the monstrosity of the bureaucratic apparatus that Kafka anticipated but could not have foreseen the monstrous size and function it would grow to a few years after his death in the institutionalized genocide and overall machinery of Nazism.
as The Filmmaker
as Franz Kafka
as David Hilsner
as Rabbi Löw
as Löbl
as Esther
as Simon
as SS man Günther
as Public prosecutor
as Milena Jesenska
as Grete Bloch
as Felice Bauer
as Dora Diamant
as Max Brod
as The Filmmaker (voice)
as Franz Kafka (voice)
