Beauty & Decay - Cracking the Frame

Annekatrin Hendel’s gentle portrait introduces the soft side of a man that the world knows as Europe’s toughest bouncer. Sven Marquardt does not only guard the door of the infamous techno club Berghain, he’s also an acclaimed photographer. He started his career working as a trained photographer in East Berlin in the 80s, capturing the distinctive subcultural scene of the city before the fall of the Berlin Wall: erotic, nonchalant, dirty, and existential, powerfully expressive black and white photographs.

The documentary follows Marquardt as he reunites with two of his closest friends and favorite models from his punk rock youth, model Dominique Hollenstein (Dome) and photographer Robert Paris. Punctuated by Marquardt’s black and white portraits and by Robert Paris’s impressive photographs of wastelands and facades in East Berlin, Beauty & DEcay tells the story of Marquardt and of the rebellious artists whose lives have been defined by their artistic view of the world, by radicalism, and open-mindedness, trying to remain unchanged in a city that has underdone a radical transformation.