Berlin - Ecke Schönhauser

The third film made by the Kohlhaase/Klein ‘collective’ is a DEFA classic. Inspired by Italian Neorealism and filmed on original locations in Prenzlauer Berg, the film portrays a group of youths that hangs out underneath the arches of the underground railway at Schönhauser Allee. They run riot and soon find themselves brushing up against the Volkspolizei. They also get mixed up in dark deals with shady characters from the West that, in the end, leads to tragedy. To this day the film remains a convincing social portrait of this Berlin district. As you might surmise from East Berlin’s answer to the teen-movies of the West, it is a film in which ‘being determines consciousness’.