photo: ZDF/Marcus Glahn.
Following the recent debut of the first gay German TV show All You Need comes a new show shining a light on lesbian love stories – and we’re quite excited about it! Unfortunately, these stories have been pretty underrepresented and it’s long overdue they get the space they deserve.
Directed by Leonie Krippendorff, “Loving Her” tells the story of Hannah and her dating life in Berlin and it could not be more relatable to us. After she has had a hard time finding work in Berlin during the pandemic she is about to move back to live with her parents when she bumps into an ex-girlfriend and her new partner which sets a whole trip down memory lane in motion including all the relationships and affairs she experienced in Berlin. Each episode is dedicated to another girl that was part of her love life in the city and each represents different challenges and life lessons she learned.
Read on…
by Frank | TV
photo: ARD Degeto/Andrea Hansen.
When I look around the TV landscape of recent years I feel quite happy that there are so many shows right now representing LGBTQIA+ people and issues, and that they are no longer just minor storylines of side characters but they’ve also become the center of attention. When I grew up the only show there was Queer As Folk and not much else in the decades after, so no matter if you liked it or not, it was a must-watch and highlight for gay guys at the time.
To see a fully gay show as the first thing on the main page of the ARD Mediathek (German’s major public TV channel) felt really good today, I have to say. I was half expecting they would hide it somewhere in the archive and you would have to search for it, but no, it’s pretty in your face. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think All You Need really is the first German TV show exclusively dealing with gay men as the main characters and getting such a prime spot. And I think the show really deserves to be put in the limelight – it’s a great-looking show, with likable characters and a solid story. A lot of the people involved have done a really good job and a warmly recommend watching.
Read on…
by Frank | TV
Cheeky, charming and full on 2000s – the German cult series “Berlin, Berlin” returns to our screens! Who knows and loved it? The high school graduate Lolle and her clumsy life and love adventures. For some, the opening credits of the 2000 cult series alone will awaken childhood memories: the wild tracking shots throughout Berlin, the cheesy but awfully catchy soundtrack and the well captured big city feeling. Between 2002 and 2005, the series was shown on the public broadcaster ARD and thrilled an audience of millions for over 4 seasons.
Read on…
by Franziska | Movies, TV
Since Dark, the German TV show productions of Netflix have unfortunately not really been my cup of tea. This changes with the new mini-series Unorthodox created by Anna Winger and Alexa Karolinski and directed by the wonderful Maria Schrader (also known as an actress from Deutschland 83/86 and the film classic Aimée & Jaguar). I just finished the entire 4 episodes in one evening and really warmly recommend it to everyone, especially since it does a good job at making Berlin look incredible.
The show is based on the autobiographical book by Deborah Feldmans by the same name and tells the story of 19-year-old Esty who grows up in the ultra-orthodox Hasidic Jewish community of Brooklyn – or as another Jewish character from the show describes it: the “lunatic fringe”. During her arranged marriage Esty realizes that she can’t imagine living her life under such strict rules, so she escapes to Berlin where she gets drawn into the scene of young aspiring musicians of the Berlin Philharmonic. Both timelines, her final year in Brooklyn and her first days in Berlin, are told in parallel which creates an impressive contrast between the strict community and the liberal life in Berlin.
Read on…
by Frank | TV
photo: ©SYFY.
After Netflix, Amazon Prime and TNT, another American TV channel/streamer is dipping their toes into the German original market. With Spides, the German branch of SYFY is releasing its first original German show. The story that is based in Berlin’s nightlife brings a contemporary twist into the classic Bodysnatcher plot. By way of a modern party drug called Blis that you consume over your eyes, an Alien organism is infiltrating young ravers and erasing their minds. Sounds like a regular night out at Berghain if you ask me…
Read on…
by Frank | TV
Crime, techno, and Berlin: these three words are the perfect keywords to describe BEAT, the brand new TV show that will premiere on November 9th, 2018, on Amazon Prime.
This crime show tells the story of Robert Schlag, a Berlin club promoter. Robert, also known as BEAT, is a real Berlin nightlife lover whose excesses have deeply caught him: sex, drugs and rock’n’roll techno music. Being a real clubber means to be a notorious person in the underground world. Whatever you would need, Beat knows how to get it: he has contacts, he knows the right people and he knows how to handle unconventional situations. His attitude and temperament attracted the German governmental authorities, charged to destroy the growing network of criminality and organ trafficking. But how to defeat crime if not from the underground itself? Beat is the only one who can help them.
Read on…
by Giulio | Party, TV
We haven’t done a new “Serie/ous Addiction” post in a while mostly due to the fact that we’ve covered the new Berlin-related TV shows either individually – like Babylon Berlin or 4 Blocks – or paired with movies – such as this massive listing. But a recent new Netflix show has spiked my desire again to write about addictive shows and paired with the occurrence of Halloween I thought it would make a lot of sense to write up a new round of recommendation with the theme of horror.
Scary and suspenseful shows have always fascinated me (with The X Files being my first favorite show as a teenager) but to be honest, it’s rare that this genre creates something truly original or surprisingly frightening. But for some reason, this year (possibly inspired by the horrific politics in the world) saw the release of quite a lot really good horror shows. And maybe you haven’t heard of some of them, so here are my recommendations.
Read on…
by Frank | TV
Counterpart, photo: STARZ
Berlin has not only become a popular and affordable production location for many of your favorite movies and TV-shows in the last years. But our beloved city at the Spree and its uniquely edgy and rough aesthetic has become the backdrop for many national and international productions. And I think we will all agree, if one a city deserves this visual attention, then it’s Berlin. How many times have we found ourselves thinking the Berlin scenery around us is right out of a movie scene? We selected a few of our favorite shows and movies that will or have already found their way to the big and small screen this year and last year. Take a look.
Read on…
by Andy | Movies, TV
photo: Frédéric Batier/X Filme
Mark your calendars: The highly anticipated TV show “Babylon Berlin” premiers in mid October. Although we rarely get all over excited about German TV shows (sorry), we really can’t wait for this one to air. If there is one place that we wanna time travel back to, it’s the buzzing Berlin of the 1920’s. A metropolis overflowing with creative energy, full of radical extremes in economy and culture, from politics to the underworld. It feels like the mysterious aura of these few years has never left our streets, but so far few shows have done justice to how our imagination makes these times come alive.
Read on…
by Andy | TV
photo: Berlin Station / EPIX
No matter how hard to believe it might prove to be at first, Berlin has hosted the shooting of a variety of tv shows and films, from unknown indies to massive, Hollywood blockbusters, such as Inglorious Basterds and Hunger Games. It is very hard to describe the feeling of watching your beloved city on camera being the centre of a plot that has very little in common with the way you choose to spend your time in the German capital. Here are my favorite picks, when it comes to tv shows and films worthy of binge-watching, that have been shot to a great extent or even entirely in Berlin. Make sure you share with us your opinion/suggestions on the comment section below.
by Nikos | Movies, TV, Videos
