This October, the Goethe-Institut Los Angeles will host the touring exhibition Brilliant Dilletantes – Subculture in Germany in the 1980s.

Curated by Mathilde Weh, (Visual Arts, Goethe-Institut, Munich), this multimedia exhibition presents the most comprehensive survey of German subculture of the 1980’s to date and includes, photos, posters, albums and cassettes, as well videos and an interactive sound station offering samples music from the bands Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft/D.A.F., Der Plan, Die Tödliche Doris, Einstürzende Neubauten, Freiwillig Selbstkontrolle/ F.S.K., Ornament und Verbrechen, and Palais Schaumburg.

Preceding the exhibition’s opening, documentary, experimental, and feature films focusing on this era of artistic freedom will be presented at the Goethe-Institut.

PLEASE NOTE: ALL SCREENINGS ARE FREE OF CHARGE. ALL FILMS ARE IN GERMAN WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES

Location

GOETHE-INSTITUT
5750 Wilshire Blvd. Suite 100
Los Angeles, CA 90036

Tickets FREE OF CHARGE

Information:

323.525.3388 or http://www.goethe.de/ins/us/los/ver/en14689150v.htm

Christiane F. – Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo (Christiane F.)
Germany (BRD) 1981, 131 min., digital. Dir. Uli Edel
Cast: Natja Brunckhorst, Thomas Haustein, and David Bowie.
Music: David Bowie
Followed by Q&A with Filmmaker Uli Edel

Berlin-Gropiusstadt, 1975. 13 year old Christiane (Natja Brunckhorst) lives with her mother and younger sister in a high-rise housing project on the outskirts of West-Berlin. Only the music of David Bowie offers her a sense of escape from an otherwise lonely and alienated existence. Sneaking out one night to join her older friend Kessi at the nightclub “Sound,” Christiane meets Detlef (Thomas Haustein), an older boy, who introduces her to a world of drugs and the rebellious nightlife of the city. Driven by a need to escape her chaotic home life, and her growing infatuation with Detlef, Christiane’s initial experiments with pills, marijuana and LSD quickly lead to heroin, a drug that all of her new friends use. Soon Christiane and her friends are drawn to the seedy “Bahnhof Zoo” railway station, notorious for drugs and prostitution, where they sell their bodies to feed their ever-growing addiction. Based on the shocking autobiography of the teenage heroin addict turned prostitute Christiane Felscherinow (“Christiane F”). Complemented by a soundtrack including songs from Bowie’s Berlin years (1977–1979), Edel’s film achieved almost immediate cult status for its hauntingly realistic portrayal of the underground drug scene that plagued Germany and Europe throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Felscherinow would later become an artist in the Berlin underground music and film scene, appearing in the underground cult hit film Decoder, as well as performing with Alexander Hacke (Einstürzende Neubauten) as the duo Sentimentale Jugend at the now legendary Festival Genialer Dilletanten in September 1981 in Berlin.