First wave - March 2020 in the Schiller neighborhood - Documentary

Documentary, 55 min., 2020, OmeU
Official selection of the Hof International Film Festival

Early March 2020. Everything is changing.

Impressions, thoughts and conversations from the Schillerkiez neighborhood in Berlin in the midst of the emerging pandemic and infodemic in the first four weeks of the new era. Recorded in and around the Café Pappelreihe in direct proximity to the world’s largest inner-city open space, the Tempelhof Field.

While the effects, possible scenarios, curfews and the situation abroad are reported and discussed on the radio, the events and conversations in the café, the neighborhood and the expanse of the Tempelhof Field are observed. The post-war period in Berlin is remembered, jokes are made, fears and scenarios debated, but also what it means when an important place in our everyday life is suddenly gone.

Quote about the movie:
"We will all remember these first days of the 'new normal' for the rest of our lives. That was the motivation to observe everyday life here in the neighborhood and collect scraps of the flood of information.

The film ERSTE WELLE is a time capsule to preserve the uncertain feeling and our way of dealing with the situation and at the same time a portrait of the neighborhood in times of change.

Unfortunately, at the time of the festival, Café Pappelreihe, an important meeting point for the neighborhood as captured in the film, is being closed due to rent increases. The building was bought from private ownership by the MJ real estate management company, which is increasing the commercial rent to more than double and advertising it with the slogan "fair and personal". The ongoing gentrification tears another hole in the neighborhood, a place that has existed here for 30 years in the second generation, first as a newspaper store and then as a café, and has held us together in difficult times, disappears. Unfortunately, this film also serves as a reminder on the last day of this place.