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Berlin Alexanderplatz

Francis ventures the dangerous crossing from Africa to Europe and eventually ends up in Berlin. As an illegal refugee, he has nowhere to go, crime beckons.

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Deze voorstelling maakt deel uit van Rialto Filmclub met als gastspreker deze maand Ernst-Jan Pfauth.

Berlin Alexanderplatz

In 1980, the year director Burhan Qurbani was born, the Berlin Alexanderplatz series first appeared on TV, Rainer Werner Fassbinder's 15-hour critically acclaimed adaptation of Alfred Döblin's eponymous novel. It was not the series that prompted Qurbani to make this film though, but Döblin's novel, which he first read at the age of seventeen and reread many times after that. While Fassbinder's series and Döblin's novel focus on the petty criminal Franz Biberkopf, Qurbani has chosen an alternative perspective: the black refugee Francis. Like Biberkopf, Francis tries to get by in the margins of society, but he also faces virulent racism. Thus Qurbani has tried to topicalize the story and add a layer of urgency.

32-year-old Francis makes the dangerous crossing from Africa to Europe, eventually ending up in Berlin. As an illegal refugee, he has nowhere to go; a life of crime beckons. It is not what he wants, though.

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