Arsenal    Do.11.02.1999 15.00 
Arsenal    So.21.02.1999 18.00 

Metropolis: millions of people, millions of destinies, millions of hopes and broken dreams pull past each other. Even in one's own locality there is not much contact, apart from polite exchanges with neighbours and in shops. One suspects that an exciting story is hidden behind each door, each window, each face on the street, if one were to become involved. In the middle of Berlin, very close to the director's apartment, there is a 24-hour petrol station. An ugly white plastic stand-up table is a meeting point for various groups of people at different times during the day and night. German taxidrivers from East and West who have to work harder and harder for less and less money since the fall of the Wall tell each other jokes in booming voices. There is a young man who is taking female hormones in order to change his gender and who goes from one extreme to another clamouring for recognition and attention. There are Portuguese workers who live in meagre container apartments and slave away 65 hours a week for a happy family life back home. They dream of sensual encounters with German women despite the lack of a common language. Two pensioners, former work colleagues, suffer from insomnia and have made the petrol station their second home, one because his wife has left him, the other because his wife still hasn't kicked the bucket. One suspects that they, along with all the others, are going through the painful and slow process of resigning to the status quo. Last, but not least, there is the attendant, a kind of patron of the petrol station who loves his work passionately. The camera not only observes people in the petrol station but it also accompanies some of the protagonists on their tours through Berlin at night, on the look-out for clubs to find women and love. It also cruises through the metropolis in a taxi, with a taxidriver who tells an anecdote on each corner but also recounts some bitter experiences. Then it returns to the petrol station. Because the film takes enough time for the individual people and the different groups, the world of the petrol station becomes a second home for the audience too. The regulars at the station, with all their fears and hopes, bragging and disappointments and especially in their forlornness, become old acquaintances. The film not only shows a microcosm, created by chance and easily overlooked, but also a moment in time which is a symbol for Berlin and Germany at the end of the 90's. About the film This small and intact social biotope with a manager, regulars, neighbours includes - who would have thought it - normal people, extremists, even transsexuals. Just like in the world at large. Sveinsson portrays these marginal Berliners with great tenderness... If cities have a soul, and this soul a character, then Werner (one of the taxidrivers) would be it rather than a chancellor.