With 300,000 inhabitants, the Berlin district of Neukölln is not only one of the largest “cities” in Germany, it is also the largest employment and social welfare office in the republic. In addition to the German core population of the traditional working-class district, there is a high proportion of foreign residents. Neukölln is considered a problem area and therefore not worth living in. The residents of Neukölln that Bernhard Sallmann accompanied still enjoy living here. Through their perspective, their memories and their life practices, Sallmann’s unspectacular “heroes” reveal a picture of coexistence in Neukölln that contradicts the spectacular headlines. In doing so, he records the district’s forms of movement and rhythms on film and thus creates a formally complex “neighborhood mythology” with layers of highs and lows.

Neukölln is sometimes reminiscent of Brooklyn, that seemingly desolate, huge district that eke out its rather unnoticed existence in the shadow of the glittering, soaring blossoms of Manhattan. But from a cultural perspective, the shadow district of Brooklyn acts like a secret driving wheel of its more prominent brother, a nutrient-rich reservoir in which the glittering world has taken root, because the protagonists who keep the city moving thrive in the humus of the subculture. A curiosity to uncover these secret food chains within large metropolises is palpable in Bernhard Sallmann’s Berlin-Neukölln. His film mixes both individual and formalized approaches and appears to be both artistic and ethnological in its approach.

Director: Bernhard Sallmann
Script: Bernhard Sallmann
Camera: Susanne Schüle
Editing: Ulrich Sackenreuter
Sound: Klaus Barm
Editorial Staff: Burkhard Althoff
Production: Gunter Hanfgarn
Co-Production: ZDF Das kleine Fernsehspiel
Stations: ZDF