A powder keg of music, art and chaos erupts in 1980s West Berlin fuelling a creative melting pot, influencing sub and pop culture. This blistering documentary, featuring appearances by Nick Cave, Christiane Felscherinow, Mark Reeder, Einstürzende Neubauten and even David Hasselhoff, fuses unreleased film footage and original interviews to reveal the story of life in the divided city.
Before the iron curtain fell, artists, squatters and hedonists would enjoy West Berlin’s unconventional lifestyle, all living for the here and now. In a cultural interzone where anything seemed possible, this was an era that was defined by the genesis of punk and ending with the Love Parade - a positive demonstration with music on the city’s main road, the Kurfürstendamm.
This fast and furious sonic collage chronicles the frenzied but creative decade that was. From punk to techno, the beat that punctuated the walled-in city was simultaneously cheap and trashy, threatened and thrown together, anxious and ambitious, clubbed and caned, stoned and drunk. Delivering seismic cultural vibrations that are still felt to this day, the artists profiled across this odyssey paved the road for future generations.
WINNER – Heiner Carow Prize, Berlin International Film Festival 2015
"An appealing memoir of a wild decade."
- The Hollywood Reporter
Tuesday 2nd May
92 min
18+
Nick Cave, Mark Reeder, Gudrun Gut, Blixa Bargeld, Joy Division, Einstürzende Neubauten, Westbam ., Nena .
Jörg A. Hoppe, Heiko Lange, Klaus Maeck
Film Festival
English and German with English subtitles
Palace Barracks, Palace Electric
