In “Polizeiruf 110: Thieves” (February 25th, 8:15 p.m., the first), the Rostock investigators Katrin König (Anneke Kim Sarnau, 51) and Melly Böwe (Lina Beckmann, 42) have to clarify what the drug addict Mascha Kovicz ( Meira Durand, 23) and her four-year-old daughter Holli (Mathilda Graf) have to do with the death of a woman. To make matters worse, King is also confronted with big feelings in this episode. Because her father Günther Wernicke (Wolfgang Michael, 68), who hadn’t contacted her for 40 years, shows up unexpectedly… Who is behind the stars of the episode?
Meira Durand was born in Cologne in 2000 and was in front of the camera as a child. In the movie “Here Comes Lola!” (2010) she played the title role as a nine-year-old. A year later, Durand took on the leading role in the fairytale adaptation “Die Sterntaler” (2011).
The young actress has also shone in a Sunday crime thriller. In the Black Forest crime thriller “Tatort: Forever and You” (2019) she played the lead role in the episode Emily Arnold, who is a teenager on the run with the much older Martin Nussbaum (Andreas Lust, 56). At the Baden-Baden TV Film Festival 2019, the film won the TV Film Prize of the German Academy of Performing Arts.
Meira Durand was last seen in the miniseries “The Second Wave” (2023), a family drama about the 2004 tsunami disaster in Thailand.
The 23-year-old has already attracted attention at award ceremonies for her acting skills. In 2010 she was awarded the White Elephant for Young Actress and the Emo at the Children’s Film Festival. There was a New Faces Award nomination for “Tatort”.
The first minutes of the crime thriller belong to Masha and Holli. In addition to the terrible living conditions, moments of lightheartedness are also shown in a kind of Pippi Longstocking’s Villa Kunterbunt. “Mathilda, the girl who played four-year-old Holli, found the motif to be an exciting adventure playground,” remembers director Andreas Herzog (born 1967).
For Mathilda Graf it was her first time in front of a film camera. It will be interesting to see when and where the child actress will be seen again…
Wolfgang Michael was born in 1955 in Heinsberg, North Rhine-Westphalia, on the border with the Netherlands. He made a name for himself primarily in the theater. From 1993 he played at the Berlin Schaubühne at Lehniner Platz. From 1999 to 2009 he was a member of the renowned Burgtheater ensemble in Vienna. Since 2017 he has been back on stage in the capital as a member of the Berliner Ensemble.
His rare outings in front of television cameras include some Sunday crime thrillers: He was already seen as the commissioner’s father in the last Rostock crime thriller “Polizeiruf 110: Nur Gespenster” (December 2023). Whether he will stay is rather questionable after the latest episode. Also in his filmography: “Crime Scene: The House at the End of the Street” (2015, last Steiner case, Frankfurt am Main), “Crime Scene: Like Lilly Once” (2010, first Murot crime thriller, Wiesbaden), “Crime Scene: Death a teacher” (2011, Lena Odenthal) and “Polizeiruf 110: How is the world so quiet” (2008, Munich).
Since 2021, Wolfgang Michael has been playing the ongoing role of caretaker Wilhelm in the Prime Video series “The Discounters”.
