Catching Out: Europe

Driving Max in Poland

Three:

Of course no city in Europe evokes the legacy of WWII more powerfully than Berlin. Standing near a preserved remnant of the Berlin Wall, I felt the agony of frustrated freedoms as I realized that people living in the East could see trees and buildings in the West. Perhaps they could also hear and smell the life they longed for on the other side. Now the wall has been compressed into a double brick line zigzagging thru the city like a hairline fracture, Potsdamer Platz has become a popular attraction branded by Sony, and the Brandenburger Tor has been restored to it's position as symbolic sentinel.

Strangely this capital of Old Europe reminded me of Los Angeles, possibly because both cities seem more imagined than real. But actually, Berlin has been repeatedly reimagined by prevailing political sentiments over the course of a conflicted century. Today the city appears sprawling and adolescent, full of extremes and dreams not unlike the City of Angels.

Following the technical disaster in Warsaw, CATCHING OUT looked stunning at Dokument Kino (www.dokument-kino.de) in Berlin. Too bad there were only three people in the audience to witness it. But I couldn't take the lack of attendance personally…the film screening after mine was from a relatively famous German docmaker and not one person showed up to see it. An impressive new venue devoted exclusively to documentary film, Dokument Kino is a hip industrial space with a substantial screen and an outstanding projection system. But maybe they should consider putting some of their resources into publicity?

previous | next