7 Movies You Must See Before Visiting Berlin

If you want to experience the city street by street and feel it in every pore, you cannot miss, for anything in the world, these 7 films that will make your trip to Berlin a true story of fiction (and fantasy).

Martin Karow is DJ Ickarus, an electro DJ and producer at the peak of his career. His nights take place in techno clubs around the world, and his days are spent hopping from one airport to another. He is accompanied by Mathilde, his manager and girlfriend. Both are in the middle of producing Ickarus's next album when, after one of his performances, Martin ends up in the emergency room of a Berlin psychiatric hospital due to drug excesses.

During the days he must spend in the hospital, he continues working on his album, but his personal situation begins to feel too frustrating. The record label does not seem very interested in releasing his work, and after escaping from the hospital, he indulges in an orgiastic weekend with one of his fans. The self-destructive spiral Martin has found himself in seems never-ending, and once again, he will check himself into the hospital, this time voluntarily. The recovery process appears complicated, but finally, there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel.

German Democratic Republic, 1984. Captain Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe), a solitary man, is a competent officer of the Stasi, the all-powerful secret police of the GDR. However, when he is assigned to spy on the couple consisting of a prestigious writer (Sebastian Koch) and a popular actress (Martina Gedenk), he cannot even imagine how much this mission will influence his view of life and the world.

Berlin, October 1989. A few days before the fall of the Wall, Alex's mother, a proud supporter of communist ideals, falls into a coma. When she wakes up eight months later, her son will do everything possible to ensure that she doesn't find out that she is living in a reunified and capitalist Germany. His goal is to turn the family apartment into an island anchored in the past, a kind of museum of socialism where his mother can live comfortably, believing that nothing has changed.

Two lovers have just a few minutes to change the course of their lives. Lola receives a desperate call from her boyfriend Manni, who has just lost a small fortune belonging to a mafia boss for whom he works. If Lola doesn't get the money in twenty minutes, Manni will face the consequences.

Filmed in a single continuous shot, the film takes place in the famous Berlin neighborhood of Kreuzberg. The camera witnesses everything that happens to the young Victoria, a young Spanish woman in Berlin, during two hours of her life: from four in the morning to six o'clock; from the moment she meets four young men whose night is just beginning, to how, in that brief period, things happen that will completely change the course of her life.

Two angels hover over Berlin, a city divided by the "wall of shame." They are only visible to children and those with pure hearts. Helpless witnesses who cannot change the course of events, they feel great compassion for human beings. One of them, determined to experience mortal feelings, falls in love with a young trapeze artist...

Brandenburg Prison, 2000. Martin Schulz, 36 years old, is released after 11 years in prison. As a citizen of the former German Democratic Republic, he experienced the fall of the Berlin Wall from his cell in prison. Upon his release, he is handed the belongings he had at the time of his arrest: a blue GDR identity card, a GDR driver's license, and a wallet with GDR money.