Berlin Alexanderplatz

An African immigrant struggles to make a new life for himself in the big city in director/co-writer Burhan Qurbani’s audacious, neon-lit reinterpretation of Alfred Döblin’s 1929 novel Berlin Alexanderplatz (famously adapted by Reiner Werner Fassbinder in 1980). After surviving his perilous journey, Francis (Welket Bungué) vows to be a good man, but he soon realizes how difficult it is to be righteous while undocumented in Germany—without papers, without a nationality, and without a work permit. When he receives an enticing offer for easy money from the psychopathic gangster Reinhold (Albrecht Schuch), Francis initially resists temptation, but eventually he is sucked into Berlin’s underworld and his life spirals out of control. –Alissa Simon