Berlin - Ecke Bundesplatz: 2. Die Aussteiger

Detlef Gumm and Hans-Georg Ullrich began working on their long-term observational documentary BERLIN – ECKE BUNDESPLATZ twenty-four years ago. Their plan was to make a series of short and longer films documenting the fortunes of several inhabitants of an ordinary Berlin neighbourhood as they moved towards the year 2000. The protagonists were a typical cross-section of people living an old quarter of West-Berlin, and so, in their film, widows, a high-flying lawyer, drop-outs, owners of small businesses and a single mother became chroniclers of their Wilmersdorf world.

The filmmakers paid another visit to their protagonists for five new epi­sodes of their opus. In MÜTTER UND TÖCHTER (Mothers And Daughters) we meet a woman who brought up her daughter on her own and became dependant on social welfare as a result; this episode compares their lives, then and now. DIE AUSSTEIGER (The Dropouts) relates what has happened to the dreams and plans of a gay couple. At the centre of SCHÖN IST DIE JUGEND … (How Beautiful Youth Is) are an 89-year-old woman and the man who later became her carer and set up his own business. DIE KÖPKE-BANDE (The Köpcke Gang) is about a family whose members almost all have artistic jobs, while DER YILMAZ-CLAN (The Yilmaz Clan) tells the story of an upwardly mobile family of immigrants. Everyday stories and contemporary history merge on Berlin’s Bundesplatz to provide an authentic picture of Germany.

BERLIN ECKE BUNDESPLATZ – DIE AUSSTEIGER is a unique contemporary document. The two protagonists think they live a more reasonable life than most: Reimar Lenz, a maladroit intellectual, who has used his tiny apartment as a political saloon for the past 22 years, and Hans Ingebrand, an ex-policeman, painter, and masseur. They have been a couple for 37 years, and lifetime partners since 2002. They lead a life bereft of material luxury and social assurances. They have higher aspirations. Their main concerns are international, inter-religious, and intercultural communication. They spend their days picketing, working for freedom, and engaging in political discussion groups. But even these 'drop-outs' aren't getting any younger. They also have to deal with getting older and with facing illness and death.

DIE AUSSTEIGER is a portrait of a long-term relationship, set in the context of a Berliner subculture before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

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