Checkpoint Berlin

An elderly film director visits Berlin for a screening of his latest film, starting a physical and mental journey along the remnants of the wall that split the city for almost 30 years. As he did in Les Unwanted de Europa (2018), filmmaker Fabrizzio Ferraro gathers tales from Europe's recent history of people who risked their lives to escape repression, those that helped them and those that did everything to stop them. Accompanied by a classical cello score, multiple personal histories fill this serene, contemplative walk through the past. The idea that the past, present and future are inseparable is visually expressed in a montage of archival footage, shots of contemporary Berlin and dramatised scenes linking the escape of an East German couple to a legend about the director's uncle. (International Film Festival Rotterdam)