Director Stefano Casertano
Countries Germany
Duration 93 min
Synopsis
Tacheles Art House was a community of some 100 independent artists residing in a building in the center of Berlin, visited by some 500,000 people every year. The building was cleared in September 2012, but some artists kept on squatting the backyard under snow, rain and sometimes sun. This is the story of the backyard artists and their attempts to resist eviction (and “gentrification” at large), find a new place and keep on making art. The artists engage in acts of blunt rebellion and seek ways to resettle in the most various places, including a former Cold War espionage station on the outskirts of Berlin, and a villa in Turkey. After various failed initiatives, when everything is lost, a new hope seems to rise, but a part of Berlin may be gone forever., The story mixes drama and lighter moments, influenced by the Italian neorealist tradition, and deals with the topics of “destiny” and “rebellion” as reflections of personality. The opening is inspired by becketian themes with a grotesque turn: a drunk artist, as an act of protest, tries to burn some paintings in the center of Berlin, but cannot manage to. As he finally succeeds, nobody notices, and he reacts giving a classic debordian statement about “art needing to be a show, otherwise nobody pays attention”. The movie further explores this concept, with the squatting artists striving to gain some consideration by the city – and constantly failing in the process., The Tacheles backyard represents life and the constant struggle against destiny. The artists know that their “beautiful life” (as one of them describes it) is bound to a certain end, yet they never give up their struggle, nor their need to produce art – and both their struggle and art become the purest expression of the romantic sense of existing. As the group moves to Turkey, the story assumes a “Biblical” turn when the artists refer to a villa they should move into as “Promised Land”. While travelling to the villa they even cross a sea (the Dardanelles – like the Red Sea crossing), but in the end they have to face reality: the villa is a ruin, and they cannot escape their destiny., The filmmaker spent one year living with the artists, filming their everyday life, their interactions, and their thoughts about art and culture. The project enjoyed the support of other filmmakers interested in the story of Tacheles, sharing their material and experience. This movie is therefore the last complete document about the Tacheles, witnessing the end of a community existing from 1990 to 2013.
Tacheles Art House was a community of some 100 independent artists residing in a building in the center of Berlin, visited by some 500,000 people every year. The building was cleared in September 2012, but some artists kept on squatting the backyard under snow, rain and sometimes sun. This is the story of the backyard artists and their attempts to resist eviction (and “gentrification” at large), find a new place and keep on making art. The artists engage in acts of blunt rebellion and seek ways to resettle in the most various places, including a former Cold War espionage station on the outskirts of Berlin, and a villa in Turkey. After various failed initiatives, when everything is lost, a new hope seems to rise, but a part of Berlin may be gone forever., The story mixes drama and lighter moments, influenced by the Italian neorealist tradition, and deals with the topics of “destiny” and “rebellion” as reflections of personality. The opening is inspired by becketian themes with a grotesque turn: a drunk artist, as an act of protest, tries to burn some paintings in the center of Berlin, but cannot manage to. As he finally succeeds, nobody notices, and he reacts giving a classic debordian statement about “art needing to be a show, otherwise nobody pays attention”. The movie further explores this concept, with the squatting artists striving to gain some consideration by the city – and constantly failing in the process., The Tacheles backyard represents life and the constant struggle against destiny. The artists know that their “beautiful life” (as one of them describes it) is bound to a certain end, yet they never give up their struggle, nor their need to produce art – and both their struggle and art become the purest expression of the romantic sense of existing. As the group moves to Turkey, the story assumes a “Biblical” turn when the artists refer to a villa they should move into as “Promised Land”. While travelling to the villa they even cross a sea (the Dardanelles – like the Red Sea crossing), but in the end they have to face reality: the villa is a ruin, and they cannot escape their destiny., The filmmaker spent one year living with the artists, filming their everyday life, their interactions, and their thoughts about art and culture. The project enjoyed the support of other filmmakers interested in the story of Tacheles, sharing their material and experience. This movie is therefore the last complete document about the Tacheles, witnessing the end of a community existing from 1990 to 2013.