CINECITY a special season exploring Berlin on film
BERLIN: MID TO LATE 1980s. The Birthday Party, the band I fronted, arrived in West Berlin around 1985. We didn’t sleep for three years. I remember The Risiko, run by the formidable Alex, where Blixa Bargeld was the barman, giving you free drinks and shlager music; the neverending poker game in the backroom; uneaten dinners with Wim Wenders, a stuffed parrot on his shoulder; entering the studio where Einstüerzende Neubauten were recording, to find a dog, skinny and miked-up, eating a pile of steaming offal, while Neubauten sat in the control booth, listening to the sound it made and in the process redefining modern music; the seeming endless stream of film-makers, cameras at their faces recording everything; the Kreuzburg riots, where cars were torched, supermarkets looted and the money thrown into the streets; giant rats on the stairwell; people standing around listening to roadworks as if they were concerts; illegal bars in bombed-out buildings; painters painting in garish, headache inducing colours; faecal sculptures; the bahnhof ride to the East for cheap vodka; the dim confines of the Ex’n’Pop; amphetamine-fuelled vampires roaming the streets; everybody working on something that was going to change the world. Then in 1989 the Berlin Wall came down and the world flooded into the strange, fortified hothouse of West Berlin and everything changed and something new took its place, something I did not witness as circumstances took me elsewhere.
In 1987 Wim Wenders had made the mighty Wings of Desire where past, present and future tied together and angels walked up and down the divided city, the sky from which they came the only shared element. In doing so he created a lasting homage to this strange and fractured city. It is an honour to present this film and the many others in this season. Looking through these films, one is struck by their diversity and the diversity of the city itself a city that redefined itself time and time again, a city permanently in transition. Nick Cave
Gunter Lamprecht stars as the pimp Franz Biberkopf released from prison in 1928 after serving time for killing a prostitute. However no mere description of the plot can do justice to this epic from one of the most original film-makers. With a brilliant cast and thousands of extras, Fassbinder explores his favourite themes of obsessive love, sexual powergames and mutual destruction. Critically acclaimed (it also provoked a storm ofcontroversy when it was first broadcast on German television) BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ is that rare paradox - like Reitz’s HEIMAT - a film masterpiece made for television.
You can watch individual episodes (£3.50/£3) or buy a special all - weekend ticket for just £12. For full details on tickets and timings please contact Cinematheque.
Edmund, a former Hitler Youth struggles to survive in the ruins of the city. Living in a cramped apartment, he must spend all day trying to find money and food to keep his family from starvation. Whilst Edmund runs errands and gets involved with black marketeers and adolescent crooks, his sister Eva turns to prostitution. An encounter with a former teacher changes their lives dramatically.
The screening will be introduced by Dr Daniela Berghahn, Principal Lecturer in German and Film Studies at Oxford Brookes University. Her new book Hollywood behind the Wall: The Cinema of East Germany (Manchester University Press) is a history of East German film culture from 1946 to the present.
Far from being the sombre tale the title implies, this is a fresh, vibrant and surprisingly funny love story about life in contemporary Berlin. On his way to work Jan bumps into the capricious Vera during a skirmish which leaves him arrested, fined and sacked. Things get no better when he is told by an ex-girlfriend that he needs an AIDS test and the only job he can find involves him wearing a chicken costume. However a growing friendship with a Buddy Holly obsessed stranger (a bizarrely but brilliantly cast Ricky Tomlinson) and a blossoming romance with Vera compensate until he begins to question Vera about where she disappears to every night.
“A smartly written and sharply observed comedy drama. At its frequent best it has a fresh and larky charm that’s reminiscent of fondly remembered French New Wave romances” VARIETY
Highly stylised and at times darkly comic, Fassbinder’s attack on the moral and emotional vacuum at the heart of West Germany’s post-war ‘economic miracle’, flaunts an evident debt to the 50s Hollywood melodramas of German emigré Douglas Sirk, just as Pedro Almodovar and Todd Haynes have done more recently.
This revealing documentary spanning 20 years of the band features lots of original footage and interviews with all the main players plus label boss Stevo, collaborator Nick Cave and former tour managers.
Screening with DER PLATZ. Director: Uli M Schuppel. Germany 1997. German with English subtitles. 52 mins.
A compelling and evocative portrait of the workers behind the massive urban reconstruction of Berlin’s Potsdamerplatz coupled with a great soundtrack from FM Einheit of Einstüerzende Neubaten fame.
In the mid 80s Wenders returned to Germany after considerable success in Hollywood with films such as PARIS, TEXAS to make a film about his beloved Berlin. Co-written with playwright Peter Handke and wonderfully photographed by legendary cinematographer Henri Alekan, Wenders won Best Director at Cannes in 1987.
The Duke of York’s café bar will be open for muffins, cakes, freshly squeezed orange juice and a wide selection of teas and coffees.
