Doors open at 19:30, intro starts at 20:00
HALBE TREPPE *  2002 * (Grill Point/ Halfway up the stairs) * Directed by Andreas Dresen * 106 minutes * In German with English subtitles

in the former East German industrial town of Frankfurt-Oder near the Polish border, the population is left suspended in a sort of purgatory, because their previous country and culture have been erased.

This is one of those largely unseen, obscure films that few people caught on the big screen, but many who did were deeply moved by it. Therefore it remains a kind of hidden treasure. This screening is particularly exceptional for filmgoers outside of Germany, because the film was never distributed anywhere else.

The story is set in the former East German industrial town of Frankfurt-Oder near the Polish border. It's a drizzle-grey city of dead-end jobs where people aren’t really living their lives—they are simply existing. The population is left suspended in a sort of purgatory, because their previous country and culture have been erased. This movie was made in 2002, the year NATO continued to expand and Poland became a member. None of this is discussed in this movie, but it is in the air. The world is changing, and some people are being left behind. But let's be clear, this isn't a downbeat film, it's playful and full of humor.

The narrative that emerges is about two married couples, and moments of sexual unfaithfulness that erupt between them. I won't say more about the story, but I will say that by interweaving the lives of the small town's population with the broader situation, a community starts to crystallize. Andreas Dresen was born in the GDR (East Germany) and he has a collective spirit that you can always feel in his movies.

Like the films of Lars von Trier at the time, this movie pushes back against Hollywood—only real locations were used, everything was shot with a simple hand-held camera, there was no artificial lighting and no professional actors. And in this case, there was even no script! Andreas Dresen simply collected his actors, and slowly they created the movie together and improvised the dialogue. It's a kind of honesty that makes the film shine.

This is a flick about the daily struggles of working class people, done with wit, warmth and humor. The soundtrack is by the eclectic musicians 17 Hippies, among others, and this flick was the winner of the Silver Bear (the jury award) at the Berlin Film Festival.