FR/ ou « Comment la Trabant a envahi Berlin-Ouest et ruiné le royaume de mon oncle »

Dragan Wende, immigrant yougoslave, fut le roi de la vie nocturne des années 1970 à Berlin-Ouest. Il voudrait qu’on rebâtisse le Mur – c’était mieux avant, selon lui ! Il mène désormais une existence plutôt modeste, travaillant comme videur d’une maison close et de diverses boîtes de nuit – il préfère le terme de « street manager », ça fait plus chic ! Soudainement arrive son neveu cinéaste, Vuk, pour filmer son mythique oncle de l’Ouest, et son père, Mile, un ouvrier à la retraite de la première génération des « Gastarbeiter », fier bâtisseur de Berlin-Ouest et lui aussi un grand ami du Mur … Un film drôle, plein d’humour noir, où se mêlent l’histoire d’un Berlin divisé et d’une Yougoslavie encore unie, avec celle des hommes nostalgiques d’un passé et d’un destin qui a accidentellement pris une autre tournure.

EN/ or How the trabant invaded West Berlin and ruined my uncle’s Kingdom

The exiled Yugoslavian Dragan Wende has not set foot in East Berlin for 20 years. If only Gorbachev had not destroyed the wonderful balance of the world, especially Dragan Wende’s world, with the fall of the Wall! Once the King of the Berlin underworld and the shady nightclub district along Ku’damm, the legendary Rolf Eden’s right hand man (though Eden hardly remembers his best man) and – his pockets full of Western money – the dream of the ladies of East Berlin, he now leads a rather humble existence. True to style at Adenauerplatz and in brothel-red plush, still working as a street manager (bouncer) for various nightclubs, he is actually rather lonely and on welfare. And as if that wasn’t enough, along comes his film-maker nephew, Vuk, to explore the myth of his uncle from the West, followed by his father Mile, a first generation guest worker, proud builder of West Berlin and also a great friend of the Wall…

This Balkan tragicomedy is a fond portrait, full of black humour, of a breed of men who will not be branded as losers by some accidental historic turn – even in the face of all evidence. There’s glamour in the smallest shack, and they have found their home in a community of bizarre survival artists, between Balkan songs and Kebab stands. Vuk is also accepted in the end – as a street manager, of course. West Berlin seems saved for now.