Satellite City | Marzahn on Screen

"Do you wanna go to Berlin?" demands Stefan of his friend Tasso while they are floating down the Oder on their self-built raft.

"What about you?" replies his friend.

"Nah, don't think so".

Stefan is right to fear the city, since no good awaits him there. Faced with life in a bleak high-rise complex, a teenage love triangle and the sadistic vissicitudes of the school bully, Stefan fights for his freedom and, ultimately, his life. "Insel der Schwäne" (Island of the Swans) by DEFA director Herrmann Zschosche caused considerable controversy within the GDR when it was released in 1983.

Tonight, almost 20 years later, the film will be screened between gray buildings and a parking lot in Marzahn, followed by a screening of "Die Architekten" (G 1990) by Peter Kahane, another Marzahn-based dissident film that was originally released in the midst of the peaceful revolution in '89.

(glo)