Maldoror (4 Stars)

This is the eleventh film in the Stuttgart Fantasy Film Festival.

It's the true story of a massive scandal that rocked Belgium in 1995 to 1996. Two girls, seven and eight years old, were missing. The police were unable to find them, because the Belgian police system was in disarray. There were three major units, the gendarmerie, the municipal police and the judicial police, which competed with one another instead of working together. Only Paul Chartier, an impulsive young gendarme, had an idea who was guilty, but his efforts to solve the case were blocked by his superiors. When the dead bodies of the two girls were found, Paul was blamed for not finding them while they were still alive. He was fired from the police force, but he didn't give up and continued to investigate without a badge. He suspected that there was a child trafficking ring, and the girls had only been killed because the police attention had interfered.

The scandal was the revelation that senior police officers and judges were involved in the child trafficking.

I'd never heard about this scandal. It would be good to read about it.