Wiegenlieder

This documentary is about the hopes and dreams of childhood, and what life makes of them. These first songs, sung affectionately in a warm, protective environment are the starting point for this film which opens a door on a handful of people’s lives.
LULLABY is also a journey through Berlin. The film meanders, as if out on a stroll, come across a number of people in various stages of their lives. Sometimes the encounters are brief: a look, a few sentences, a song. And at others we learn the story of someone’s life.
Detlef Jablonski was born in prison and grew up with foster parents. He has longed for his mother all his life. Home for him is his music; he writes his own songs and sings them in an amateur choir, “Different Voices of Berlin”, led by American jazz musician Jocelyn B. Smith. Helmut Oehring’s parents were deaf. He himself didn’t learn to speak until he was four years old. Today he is a well-known German composer and recipient of the Arnold Schoenberg Award. Santos first grew up in a foster family, later in a home. He has done time in prison and uses song to try to come to terms with his emotions. The best thing in his life is that his young son is with him. Chechen poet Apti Bisultanov says of himself: “I was once an innocent, happy child.” Today, this former vice-premier of Chechnya, who is a beloved poet in his own country, lives in exile.
Tamara Trampe and Johann Feindt’s new production is a cinematic declaration of love to people of all ages and backgrounds living in the German capital today.