After six days of proceedings, the trial of a young Puerto Rican man accused of murdering his father and facing execution by electric chair comes to an end. The twelve jurors retire and must now reach a unanimous verdict. For eleven of them, the case is clear, only juror no. 8 (Henry Fonda) has doubts about the guilt of the accused. A heated discussion ensues, and slowly other jury members are no longer quite sure either. In his first film, Lumet stages a thrilling chamber play about the heart of the American justice system: the jury. The camera circles around the great acting ensemble in its search for the truth. Set during the McCarthy era, when the US justice system, and with it American democracy, was shaken to its foundations, the film is a passionate appeal for civil courage and justice.

Loan of the film print with kind support of EYE Filmmuseum.

A man leafs through the book "Words of Chairman Mao Tsetung" - the so-called "Mao Bible". He tears a page out of the book and folds it into a paper airplane, which lands in a bowl of tomato soup. The three-minute short film was made during Harun Farocki's second year of study at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (dffb). When it was shown during teach-ins in the Audimax of the Free University, it was showered with thunderous applause and boos. The background to these early films is the Godard cult of the first generation of students at the dffb and the "Chinese" films of 1967/68 (from La Chinoise to Le gai savoir).

Loan of the film print with kind support of Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek.