It was the cafes and bars that became the central location of a new lifestyle in 1950s Berlin: the Presse cfe at Friedrichstraße station, the Hajo bar, the Möwe, the Esterhazy-Keller – although the obvious epicenter was the Berliner Ensemble. The intellectuals and artists that were regulars here and talked and drunk were less united by a joint artistic direction than an approach to life, in which different hopes and visions were expressed and woven together in such a way that had little to do with a conventional bourgeois career. With the documentaries by Peter Voigt, we visit these places and enter into their unique atmosphere. In DÄMMERUNG (Germany 1993), several of these bohemians recall the beginning and the end of that period of awakening, while THEATERARBEIT (East Germany 1975) looks back at the 25th anniversary of the first, not always easy years of the Berliner Ensemble, which was founded by Bertolt Brecht. (jh) (9.10.)
