Józef K. (played by Anthony Perkins, known from his role in “Psycho”) is an average, unremarkable clerk. His orderly life begins to unravel when one morning he finds mysterious strangers in his room. The men declare he’s been arrested. Thus begins a stifling, surreal trial, in which the protagonist doesn’t even know the nature of the charges against him…

The film features true screen icons: Jeanne Moreau, Romy Schneider, and the film’s director, Orson Welles, as the demonic and all-powerful defence attorney.

At its premiere, Orson Welles’s “The Trial” divided audiences and critics. Some accused the director of too bold a departure from the literary original, while others saw this as the greatest strength of this mesmerizing vision. Welles himself emphasized in interviews: “It is not so much an adaptation as a film inspired by a book in which my collaborator and partner is Franz Kafka.”