a documentary about music, art and chaos in the Wild West Berlin of the 1980s by Jörg A. Hoppe, Klaus Maeck, Heiko Lange (HD, 92 min.) B-MOVIE is a documentary about music, art and chaos in the Wild West Berlin of the 1980s: the walled-in city which became the creative melting pot for a special
a documentary about music, art and chaos in the Wild West Berlin of the 1980s
by Jörg A. Hoppe, Klaus Maeck, Heiko Lange
(HD, 92 min.)
B-MOVIE is a documentary about music, art and chaos in the Wild West Berlin of the 1980s: the walled-in city which became the creative melting pot for a special kind of sub and pop culture, attracting ingenious dilettantes and world famous celebrities alike. Before the iron curtain would fall, artists and communards, squatters and hedonists of all kinds would be drawn to Berlin to play with its fire. It was not about long-term commercial success, but about living for the moment – the kick – the here and now. With mostly unreleased TV and film footage, photos and original interviews, B-MOVIE tells the story of life in the divided city, a cultural interzone in which everything and anything seemed possible in a place unlike anywhere else in Europe. It’s a fast-paced collage of stories from a frenzied but creative decade, starting with punk and ending with the Love Parade. All in a city where the days are short and the nights are endless. This is a time when Berlin was like a B-MOVIE: colourfully cheap and trashy, threatened and thrown together, anxious and ambitious, clubbed and caned, stoned and strung out, drunk, drugged and – just very special.
CONTENT
In 1979, Mark Reeder – a musician from Manchester, England – is 21 when he leaves Joy Division‘s legendary music scene to come to West Berlin. Initially, he is fascinated by German electronic music, but as he delves into the urban jungle of the divided city he discovers that the vibrant tension in this town is the perfect breeding ground for the artistic avant-garde, mixing underground and pop culture. Soon Reeder is right in the middle of it all; he works as a record label representative, a roadie, a bouncer, musician, manager, sound engineer and even as an actor in short and feature films. The exciting Berlin scene is always in motion, in this entanglement of talent there are new bands to be devoured all in constantly changing constellations.
Reeder meets them all – the hero for a day of which David Bowie once sang. Amongst those who made it, we can find the most prominent directors, musicians, writers and photographers. Then, in the mid-80’s, as everything starts to degenerate into the mainstream and as Reeder’s own band dissolves, he takes over a bar and to make ends meet, synchronizes porn movies and unknowingly produces the first and last indie-rock album of the GDR. But the next big bang is imminent: acid house and techno, the final musical innovation of the last century is ready and waiting. Reeder becomes one of the 100-odd participants of the first Love Parade, a positive demonstration with music on the city’s main road, the Kurfürstendamm. Months later, West Berlin is history.
After the screening of the film we also kindly invite you to participate in the after-talk with our special guest Mark Reeder moderated by Gregor Bauman.
