Average German citizen Katharina Blum (Angela Winkler) spends the night with a man she barely knows. The next morning, Katharina finds the man gone--and finds herself surrounded by none-too-polite police investigators. It seems that her stranger of the evening was a political activist who has long been the object of close scrutiny by the law. Her basic civil rights ignored at every turn, Katharina is relentlessly grilled about her relationship with her one-night stand. As a result, Katharina loses her job, her friends, and her standing in the community. Unsatisfied with this, the police go after Katharina's family. A plea for democracy and individual rights. Volker Schlöndorff and Margarethe von Trotta’s powerful adaptation of Heinrich Böll’s novel is a stinging commentary on state power, individual freedom, and media manipulation–– as relevant today as on the day of its release in 1975.