Berlin Calling - Feature Film By Hannes Stoehr With Paul Kalkbrenner
Berlin Calling traces the life of the fictional electronic music composer Martin (Paul Kalkbrenner), known as DJ Ickarus.
Berlin electro composer Martin Karow (Paul Kalkbrenner), a.k.a. DJ Ickarus, is touring the world’s most with-it dance clubs with his girlfriend and manager Mathilde (Rita Lengyel), hopping from one airport to the next, from one gig to another. They share bed, music studio and office in their Berlin apartment. Mathilde is increasingly critical of Ickarus because of his excessive drug consumption, but their love and their mutual goal of bringing out a new album create a powerful bond between them. After one of his gigs, however, Ickarus loses control and ends up in the emergency drug ward of a Berlin psychiatric clinic.
Head physician Prof. Dr. Petra Paul (Corinna Harfouch) diagnoses drug-induced mental confusion. They have to wait for the lab results to find out what kind of pill Ickarus took. Although he’s more freaked out than he wants to admit, he still doesn’t take his condition particularly seriously. Mathilde brings him his computer and he continues to work on the pieces for his new album in the clinic. He also begins to take part in the social life of the “open” drug ward. He becomes friends with his fellow patients Crystal Pete (Peter Schneider), Franz (Andre Hoffmann), Michi (Paul Preuss), Jamal (Mehdi Nebbou) and Goa Gebhard (Caspar Body), as well as with Alex (Max Mauff), who is doing his civil service there. At night Ickarus is plagued by panic-like flashbacks. Dr. Paul advises him to take a creative break under her supervision, and reminds him that he is in the clinic of his own free will.
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After Alice (Megan Gay), the boss of the record label Vinyl Distortion, tells Mathilde that she won’t be releasing the new album, and club boss Tom (Dirk Borchardt) postpones the record release party. Ickarus, who is getting increasingly frustrated with his situation in the drug ward, sneaks out of the clinic, gets cocaine from his trusted dealer Erbse (RP Kahl) and spends the weekend partying with groupie Jenny (Henriette Müller). Mathilde starts losing interest in helping Ickarus get clean. She finds a shoulder and more to cry on in her ex-girlfriend Corinna (Araba Walton), who works as a bouncer at a techno club. Ickarus is less bothered by Mathilde’s relationship with Corinna than by her preaching. When they end up forming a ménage à trois, things start to fall in place once again. But then Ickarus finds out that the album has been canceled. He loses his bearings again and, in a cocaine-induced delirium, strikes Mathilde and demolishes the office of record-label boss Alice. He then runs back to the drug clinic, where another power struggle awaits him, this time with Dr. Paul. Ickarus tries to control the damage, but it’s too late. Alice kicks him out of her agency, Mathilde moves in with Corinna and refuses to see Ickarus anymore, and Dr. Paul’s therapy fizzles out and ends in a fiasco. Just before leaving the clinic, Ickarus organizes a madcap going-away party, and the clinic patients have a merry old time until the caretakers arrive and put an end to the high jinx…
Ickarus is put under sedation and isolated in a closed ward. Dr. Paul justifies this step to Mathilde by claiming that he is a danger to himself and others. In spite of their separation, Mathilde fights to have him released, and even asks Ickarus’ father (Udo Kroschwald), a Protestant pastor, for help. In the closed ward, Ickarus writes more music for his album. For a moment, the sun appears on the horizon again. But is everything really going to change for the better?
Berlin Calling - German release: October, 2 2008 - 8:00P
From the director of “One Day in Europe” (Berlinale 2005 in Official Competition) and “Berlin is in Germany” (Berlinale 2001 Panorama Audience Award) Hannes Stöhr.
Cast: Ickarus - Paul Kalkbrenner, Mathilde - Rita Lengyel, Prof. Dr. Petra Paul - Corinna Harfouch, Corinna - Araba Walton, Crystal Pete - Peter Schneider, Erbse - RP Kahl, Jenny - Henriette Müller, Father - Udo Kroschwald, Label boss - Alice Megan Gay, Alex - Maximilian Mauff, Brother - Peter Moltzen, Club boss Tom - Dirk Borchardt, Franz - André Hoffmann, Goa Gebhard - Caspar Bódy, BMW-Michi - Paul Preuss, Jamal - Mehdi Nebbou, DJ Sascha Funke - Sascha Funke, DJ Housemeister - Housemeister, DJ Onze - Onze, DJ Fritz Kalkbrenner - Fritz Kalkbrenner, DJane Peggy Laubinger - Peggy Laubinger
Club Shooting Locations: Maria am Ostbahnhof, Berlin, Bar 25, Berlin, Welcome to the Future Festival, Amsterdam, Hypnotik at Double Mixte Concert Hall, Lyon
Music: All tracks by Paul Kalkbrenner available from bpitch control.
Except for:
Paul & Fritz Kalkbrenner “Sky And Sand”
Written by Paul & Fritz Kalkbrenner, performed by Fritz Kalkbrenner, produced by Paul
Kalkbrenner, (p) & (c) 2008 bpitch control published by bpitch control music publishing http://www.bpitchcontrol.de
Sascha Funke “Mango”
written and produced by Sascha Funke, guitar played by timtim, edit by Paul Kalkbrenner, taken from the album “Mango” (bpc167) (p) & (c) 2008 bpitch control published by bpitch control music publishing http://www.bpitchcontrol.de
Autotune “Bladerunner”
(Paul Kalkbrenner Remix), written & produced by Adele and Toni Planet (p) & (c) 2004 fumakilla records Adele and Toni Planet published by ls music
Johann Sebastian Bach Pièce d`Orgue BWV 572 Publisher: Edition Peters Frankfurt
Anonymus
Prelude in G minor BWV 558
Publisher: Edition Peters Leipzig
