Highly Explosive

In central Hamburg, the discovery of an unexploded World War II bomb forces a large-scale evacuation and pushes the people affected into a personal crisis as well. As residents confront long-suppressed fears and conflicts, unexpected connections form amid the upheaval. The story follows several characters at once, including Lane Petersen, Ava Shabani, Otto and Hanne Bismarck, Ben Glaser and Viktor Knigge.

Highly Explosive is a 2025 German-Swiss drama directed by Kerstin Polte, who also wrote the screenplay. It was produced by Andrea Schütte, Dirk Decker and Sarah Born, with BR, SR, Catpics and Tamtam Film among the production companies. The film runs 95 minutes and stars Anne Ratte-Polle, Haley Louise Jones, Bernhard Schütz, Claudia Michelsen, Daniel Sträßer and Karl Markovics. It was released on 29 May 2025.

The premise places a wartime relic and a present-day neighbourhood in the same frame, using the evacuation as the setting for a multi-character drama. The German-Swiss production pairs a Hamburg setting with a cast drawn largely from German-speaking film and television. Ratings and audience scores reflect moderate engagement so far.