After a Bavarian schoolgirl writes an award-winning essay that earns her a trip to Paris she decides to follow up her efforts with a piece on the history of her town. In the process, she discovers some nasty secrets about her forefathers and their complicity with the Nazis. Despite the hostility and ostracism she and her family experience, she remains undeterred in her pursuit of the village’s darkest secrets. Verhoeven’s clever use of visual techniques, such as rear-screen projection, provides an ironic commentary on the facade of normalcy projected by Germany at the end of the Cold War. The Nasty Girl was based on the writings of Anja Rosmus, a young writer who discovered direct links to Hitler and Eichmann in her hometown of Passau.