Logline:
Four best high school friends reunite for their annual reunion. Their canoeing trip into uncharted waters descends into a living hell, turning one against the other in a fight to survive.

Synopsis:
Four dear friends from high school have created an annual summer tradition. This year’s reunion is a canoe trip into the Spreewald River Delta. What’s intended as a fairytale paddle soon turns into a backwoods nightmare.

Not only are the friends ill-prepared – maps, food and gear – but a wrong turn shunts them off course into the cross-hairs of a racist secret society.

One of the friends, Joseph, is an African immigrant who arrived in Germany as a teenager. The coven’s leader, Ulrich, offers the canoeists a stark choice: either kill Joseph and go home alive; or perish on the river one by one. “The Getaway” is part “Deliverance,” part tale of horror. It’s both a harrowing thriller of survival and a terrifying look at the racism boiling beneath 21st century “modernity.”

Exposé:
Four friends – Anita, Max, Karsten and Joseph – go on a trip to a romantic river landscape. They went to school together. Once a year they see each other again. They are city dwellers. Joseph is black.

They have canoes with them. But they cannot find the river. Searching in a largely deserted area, they come across an inn in a run-down village. They decide to go to the inn and ask for directions.

The atmosphere in the inn is hostile. The black man is a nuisance. They want to get rid of him. Things come to a head. At that moment Ulrich appears. He is the leader. He invites the four strangers to a bottle of schnapps. His intentions are opaque. Anita dances with Joseph to music from the jukebox. The two are provocative. The atmosphere is sexually charged. Ulrich prevents an éclat.

The next morning, they paddle off. The mood is cheerful and relaxed. They get lost. They have made a mistake at the turn-off. Their mobile phones are dead. They want to get back to the car, getting more and more entangled in the labyrinth of river courses. Desperation spreads.

It gets dark. They pitch their tents. Exhaustion makes Max and Karsten fall asleep immediately. Anita and Joseph have sex with each other. In the morning, the friends paddle on. On the shore they come across a hermit. She runs an ostrich farm here. She warns Joseph urgently. She is afraid for her animals. They too come from Africa.

During a stop, Max disappears. Joseph looks for him. He comes across an old run-down factory. There he watches Max being raped by of men. At the same time, Ulrich shows up at Anita and Karsten with some men. He offers them both a pistol. With it comes a deal: if they want to live, they have to shoot their black friend.

Joseph comes back and supports the injured, naked Max. Despair. Hysteria. Exhaustion. How will Karsten and Anita decide?