Berlin Alexanderplatz – Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art

A hypnotizing crime ballad about an illegal immigrant from Africa, who crosses the circles of the criminal hell in Berlin. The film is a spectacular reference to Alfred Döblin’s novel and a bold response to Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s series under the same title. Instead of the interwar period, the director Burhan Qurbani sets the plot in modern times, creating a night urban odyssey. The protagonist, Francis, has a dark past; having moved to Germany, he wants to start with a clean slate. Instead, as an undocumented newcomer he only finds illicit work and a series of humiliations – unless he succumbs to the charms of the underworld.