Krabat

Krabat is a German fantasy film set in the seventeenth century, during the Thirty Years' War. A teenage orphan, Krabat, is drawn by a voice in his dreams to a watermill in a place called Koselbruch, where an older master and eleven other apprentices live. He joins them, expecting to learn the miller's trade, and discovers that the mill also serves as a school of black magic. As he settles into this life, he grows close to a fellow apprentice, Tonda, and becomes entangled with a girl from the nearby village. The central conflict lies in the master's hold over the boys and in Krabat's efforts to resist a power that reaches into their thoughts and dreams. The film is based on Otfried Preußler's novel about the figure of Krabat, a character from Sorbian folklore.

Marco Kreuzpaintner directed from a screenplay he wrote with Michael Gutmann. It was his third feature, following Summer Storm in 2004 and Trade in 2007, and it came before The Collini Case in 2019. David Kross plays Krabat, with Daniel Brühl as Tonda, Robert Stadlober as Lyschko, Hanno Koffler as Juro, Christian Redl as the master and Paula Kalenberg as Kantorka, among a credited cast of 22. The production had a budget of 10 million USD and took in 12 million USD worldwide. On IMDb it holds a rating of 6.1/10 from around 7,100 votes, and on TMDB 5.8/10 from roughly 227 votes, indicating modest, mixed audience responses.