The fourth installment of the Ireland thriller takes Grimme Prize winner Désirée Nosbusch as Cathrin Blake to Northern Ireland, where the wounds of the armed conflict are still deep. The reconciliation between the perpetrators and the relatives of an attack victim proves to be a complex challenge for the experienced psychologist - especially since not all the bills have yet been settled. The award-winning director Züli Aladag stages "Forgiveness" as a pulsating drama in which the psychological ballast of the past threatens to turn into new violence. Roland Stuprich's grandiose camera work turns the barren western Irish landscape into a field of projection for the interplay of trust, remorse and reconciliation. Decades of fighting in Northern Ireland left deep wounds that have not yet healed.
Criminal psychologist Cathrin Blake (Désirée Nosbusch) faces the delicate task of having to mediate in a perpetrator-victim conversation. 10 years ago, as a "New IRA" terrorist in his early 20s , Greg O'Leary (Gavin Fullam) was involved in a bomb attack that killed an bystander. Greg is ready to face a debate with Daniel Ward (Parnell Scott), the dead man's son. The little boy of that time, who had to watch helplessly when his father died, has become a bitter and insecure man. Greg sincerely repents, but fails to convince Daniel. The conversation ends in a scandal, Daniel also eludes Cathrin. Cathrin senses that Daniel's life is still being overshadowed by the death of his father and suspects that he is up to something.
But she has no evidence and cannot persuade Superintendent Kelly (Declan Conlon) to intervene. But Greg and his family, with whom he wants to build a new life in Galway after his release from prison, are threatened from a completely different angle: Because the old comrades-in-arms distrust Greg and his wife Aideen (Roisin O'Neill), they sense betrayal. And if there's anything unforgivable, it's treason...