In the street of the Paris Commune in Berlin Friedrichshain, behind the tracks of the Ostbahnhof, lies like a stranded ship the huge prefabricated building that was once the media palace of the GDR. On the roof, the illuminated letters that have long since been switched off still form the inscription NEW GERMANY. Inside, time seems to stand still. A doorman from the “old days” rules the foyer, the past lives on: in the smell of linoleum, the standing paternoster, the endless corridors in the light of flickering neon tubes. Walter Grenzbach, the last employee of the newspaper remaining here, still responsible for “public relations” has his empire on the ground floor. Walter sees his “empire” sinking a little further day by day. The once strictly secured executive suite on the second floor was hijacked by a clique of young creatives. Basses now boom through the corridors, and “Mr. Schneider” sells sound machines for DJs in the large editorial hall. One of the offices is now an animation studio. But the animator Katrin Rothe hesitated for a long time about moving in here. But now, here of all places, she is developing something like a sense of home in the vanished country of her childhood.

The documentary is a portrait of a strange “in-between place” where the GDR still survives as a “leftover” and shines its neon yellow light on those who have built their own little “empires” in the niches that have become vacant. No longer a New Germany, but a bizarre new German territory. One of the places threatened by renovation and soon to disappear forever, where history can be felt as the simultaneity of past and present.

Director: François Rossier, Sandra Prechtel
Script: François Rossier, Sandra Prechtel
Camera: Peter Badel
Editing: François Rossier, Kolin Schult
Sound: Sirko Löschner, Jan Weymann
Editorial Staff: Dr. Beate Schönfeldt (MDR)
Production lead: Sabina Engel
Production: Andrea Ufer
Station: MDR

DOK Leipzig, 2004
Achtung Berlin – New Berlin Film Award, 2004
Rencontres internationales Paris/Berlin, 2004