23 (1998) is a German movie about a young hacker Karl Koch, who supposedly committed suicide on May 23 1989. It was directed by Hans-Christian Schmid, who also participated in screenwriting. The film's accuracy has been disputed by some witnesses to the real-life events it was based on.

Plot

In Germany in the 1980s - at the high times of cold war - the 19 year-old Karl Koch (August Diehl) finds the world around him threatening and chaotic. Inspired by the fictious character Hagbard Celine (from the Illuminatus Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson he starts getting into the backgrounds of political and economic power and discovers signs that make him believe in a worldwide conspiracy.

At a meeting with hackers he gets to know the student David (Fabien Busch ). David and Karl are able to hack the, back then still just developing global data network and their believe in justice propels them into espionage for the KGB.

Further driven by Karl's contact to a drug dealer. The increasing pressure to carry out good hacks into foreign systems drives Karl into a cocaine dependence and alienates him increasingly from David.

Karl, who often sits in front of his computer for other several days without sleep in the cocaine intoxication, suffers from ever stronger illusion conceptions, which blur to borders between day and night, dream and reality. When the confidence breaks to David, Karl is alone posed on himself. Soon the collapse follows, he is being brought to a hospital and after the withdrawal accommodated in a home.