Home Performing Arts Cinema: Reliving Berlin Nights.

Cinema: Reliving Berlin Nights.

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24h Berlin is a colossal documentary bringing to life 24 hours in the city from over 600 hours of footage all shot on September 5th, 2005.  It took a crew of 400 with no less than 80 cameras filming simultaneously by professionals and amateurs alike to show the world how much the city has grown and changed since the wall fell 20 years ago.  We were treated to a preview of what’s to come but the film will not premier until September 5th of 2009, exactly one year from when they began.

If that’s not impressive enough, there will also be a book to accompany the film made from 30,000 photographs from 40 different photographers and stories from 18 authors.  When the big day finally arrives the film will play over and over for 24 hours.  Somebody asked why they chose that date, if it had any significance and Ann Carolin Renniner, one of the producers said that they wanted to pick a date that was open, that wasn’t a holiday, that didn’t have any meaning.  I imagine it’s their aim to establish the date as some sort of holiday for their film but everyday has an important meaning.  Didn’t the Munich Massacre take place on September 5th?  I’m quite sure of it actually.  But I guess that doesn’t really count as a holiday and if memories must be traded, 24h Berlin is a good trade off to the slaughtered members of the Israeli Olympic Team.

The other film, Berlin Calling, is award winning director Hannes Stöhr’s junior effort.  Pairing himself with real life techno DJ Paul Kalkbrenner, for a biopic of the fictional techno DJ Ickarus.  We’ve all seen the biopics of dead legends from Johnny Cash to Brian Jones to Ray Charles and Hannes’ film is drawn up by those guidelines but applied to the electronic music seen.  Armed with Paul’s personal experiences of his struggle to find his way as an electronic musician and performer, the two collaborated on the script to bring some reality to an otherwise fabricated world.  We’re allowed to glimpse the opening title sequence, a tease of what’s to come after a short wine tasting outside.  Before we leave, Hannes is stating his case that “Techno is to Berlin like Reggae is to Kingston.” Which would be true if not for the fact that Techno started in Detroit.

timbeckerphoto000115There’s no doubt, Berlin is the best place in the world to be for electronic music these days but it’s only because of the many electronic producers from America, like Ritchie Hawtin for example, that moved there and turned the city into the heart of the new minimal techno genre that it is today.

Outside I’m throwing back chilled sweet Riesling to cool myself off.  It’s crowded, stuffy, and I never was very good at containing my own heat.  Give me winter over summer any day.  I go out for a quick smoke and am greeted by the damp and cold of early spring in Manhattan.  Seems like if I’m not on one island it’s another and the drag on my cigarette drags me back to the past.  Rene continues…

“It was September 89, just weeks before the wall fell.”

“Well if that doesn’t teach you something about patience I don’t know what will.”

We’re in a small pub that has all eyes glowing by black light and the bartender is giving us 10 ten of what’s just arrived from Holland advising us to start with just a half, powerful as they are.

“It was the time that nobody could get any more visas to go to Hungary.  Hungary had opened the borderline to Austria and many Germans used this way to cross.  East Germans needed a visa to go to Hungary.  From Hungary you could go to Austria and from there enter West Germany. Many of my friends used this way and in August ‘89 I decided to do the same. But with no visa, I had the idea to go through the Czech Republic and cross a little river to come into Hungary.  I went with a friend.

On the way the train stopped and the police came on board searching for refugees. They checked all bags and tickets.  I had to keep all addresses from my West German family in my head.  If you had even a paper with a telephone number in your wallet, you went to jail.  I saw it happen.  We made it though and crossed the border, crossed the Czech Republic and entered Slovakia to arrive at Banska Bystrica, a small town at the Czech-Hungarian borderline just north of Budapest.

We went to a small hotel where we met a German women with a baby and a little boy.  She needed help, her boyfriend was west German and planned on meeting her once she made it the other side.  The receptionist in the hotel found out that we were refugees and demanded West German money to show us the way out and to not call the police.  With no choice, we agreed.”

“How do you say bitch in German?”

“Miststüc…”

“The next night we went with two guys in a car to the border and from the minute we arrived the situation was bad.  Machine guns firing, bullets whizzing.  We went back to the hotel and the receptionist attempted to blackmail us again.  This time we stood our ground and put pressure on her.  In the end she told us about a farmer who has a field crossed by a little river which is itself the border.  With the young boy on my shoulders, the woman, her baby and my friend, we crossed the shallow river.  The water only came up to my knees and as we crossed the farmer was on his tractor plowing the field.  He screamed, “HUUUUURRRAAAAAHHHHH!!!!”

As soon as we were across, we ran.  There was a gypsy family in front of us and I asked them in Russian if this was Hungary and they said it was.  The women’s boyfriend from West Germany arrived and collected her and the children.  He gave us some money and we never saw them again.

We moved to the next village without any Hungarian money and tried to get on a train.  The police arrived and brought us to an office and took our names.  My friend had a panic attack in fear that we would be sent back but it was only to send to the refugee camp in Budapest where we would get a bus to Vienna and after that, West Germany.”

“That’s one hell of a story.  Were you seeing spirits before or after this?  I mean did the experience trigger your abilty?”

“No, I could always see them.  It’s always been.  It’s normal yah.”

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