Based on the novel by Heinrich Boll - which was itself based on the treatment he received from a German tabloid, after he wrote an article about the urban terrorists operative in Germany in the early Seventies and their brutal treatment at the hands of the government. Katharina Blum meets a young man at a party and spends one night with him, only to awake, find him gone and herself in the middle of a nightmare. It transpires that the man was an alleged terrorist under surveillance and Katharina is herself arrested and subjected to an hysterical smear campaign by the tabloid press. Co-written and co-directed by Schlondorff's wife, herself a successful film director, this powerful statement on modern terrorism and police methods is widely regarded as one of Schlondorff's most superior films.