Berlinale

Berlinale – It is Europe´s biggest film festival and together with Cannes probably the most important. Since I have the pleasure to be flatmate with an aspiring movie sound designer, he took me to two premiers of documentaries he had been contributing to.
Irrationale Rest Mutter
“The Irrational Remains” & “We were never here”

“Der Irrationale Rest” / “The Irrational Remains” tells the story of three friends who got seperated in 1987 when two of them tried to escape eastern Germany but got caught. Almost 20 years later they meet again and relive their past.
I think this is a very important movie because people in Germany tend to forget about the dark side of communist Germany. Besides bizarre food and funny pedestrian traffic lights we must not forget the policy of fear, the continual surveillance by the secret service and the state-run against everybody who did not conform to the system.

Second Movie “Wir waren niemals hier”/”We were never here” is about the rockband “Mutter”, who are surprisingly unsuccesful, since they never obeyed any rule of business. It´s a funny and interesting movie about punk music, artistic expression and unusual ideas.
Find lots of free “Mutter”-music on their homepage Muttermusik.

I certainly enjoyed the glamorous atmosphere around the festival. In contrast to the typical DJ environment, a dark and dirty club, you walk on red carpets. Nice.