The German film director Uli M Schueppel will be at SPOT to present two of his best films Elektrokohle – Von Wegen from 2009 about the historic ’Einstürzende Neubauten’ concert in East Berlin shortly after the collapse of the Berlin Wall and The Road to God Knows Where, a 16 mm classic about and featuring Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds on tour in the USA in 1989.
1989 was a landmark year for Uli M Schueppel like it was for the rest of the world. Schueppel graduated from the film school in Berlin with The Road to God Knows Where, in which in the tradition of classical cinema verité he follows the friends in Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds on a five-week tour in the US. Side by side with the band in the tour bus, in hotels, at press conferences and at gigs, the authenticity, the friendship and the rock’n’roll life light up the crisp 16 mm footage which looks quite a lot better on a cinema screen than in this You Tube video:
That same year, a few weeks after the collapse of the wall Schueppel shot the footage for another film, which intentionally was not completed before 20 years later. On the 21st of December 1989 Schueppel went along with ‘Einstürtzende Neubauten’ through the still operating border control posts into East Berlin and factory hall Elektrokohle VEB, where they met with their many secret fans on the other side for the first concert with a Western band in former DDR after the collapse of the Berlin Wall. It doesn’t get more Berlin than that! In 2009 Schueppel followed up with new footage of the same fans from back then, who go back to the place and tell us what that night meant to them. With the concert as the pivotal element Elektrokohle (Von wegen) epitomizes the reunion, which freed people after decades of suppressed desperation yet also revealed deep gaps and sent the reunited country on a long road to recovery.
Elektrokohle (Von wegen) and The Road to God Knows Where will be presented in collaboration with the site MusicFilmWeb. You can see the films at Godsbanen on Saturday the 3rd of May as part of the free film programme during SPOT.
After The Road to God Knows Where there will be a long Q&A session (30-45 minutes) with Uli M Schueppel and reporter and MusicFilmWeb editor Andy Markowitz.
