Neukölln Unlimited
- Hassan Akkouch: he himself
- Lial Akkouch: they
- Maradona Akkouch: he himself
Neukölln Unlimited is a German documentary from the year 2010. Filmmakers Agostino Imondi and Dietmar Ratsch accompany with the camera's siblings Hassan, Lial and Maradona by the Neukölln district of Berlin.
The film was co-produced by rbb in collaboration with Arte and financially supported by the Federal Film Board, the DFFF, the Media Board Berlin- Brandenburg as well as by the MFG Film Funding and the MEDIA program. Working title was " Life's a battle".
Action
The siblings Hassan (18 ), Lial (19) and Maradona (14 ) are talented musicians and breakdancers who live in the Neukölln district of Berlin since early childhood. With hip-hop and breakdance they grew up, this is their language, which is her passion.
Her family was originally from Lebanon and is permanently threatened by deportation for 16 years. Therefore, Lial and Hassan develop the plan, with their art to ensure the livelihood of the family, so that they may legally remain in the country.
Vacuum created tensions: between Lial and Hassan, a competition designed to act as breadwinners in the family. Maradona, however, takes a different way, he is repeatedly suspended from school. Torn between the ambitious lifestyle of his older siblings and the street life with his buddies, he is at a crossroads between motivation and resignation.
The tide is turning only when Maradona surprisingly qualification succeeds to a TV casting show: Should he win the winners prize of 100,000 euros, he could be the one to secure the future of the family.
Music and dance
The soundtrack was composed by the Berlin composer Eike Hosenfeld, Moritz Denis and Tim Stanzel. The musicians were inspired by the hiphop and breakdance culture with which to identify the protagonists of the film. In order to paint the multi-ethnic life of Neukölln, the musicians blended modern beats with traditional oriental sounds.
Other songs in the film are original music by Hassan and Lials pop band No IBN.
In addition to the various sub-genres of street dance come other dance forms to the course, such as modern dance and Expressionist dance. These are used by the protagonists of the film, to express their feeling for life. For Neukölln Unlimited, these dances are therefore a cinematic metaphor for the Coming of Age of the three siblings.
Animation elements
To make the experience of deportation and the foreign -feeling in the " home country " Lebanon experience for the viewer and take him on an emotional journey, the memory level has been implemented in parts in animated images. The comic style is based on graffiti, which are an important means of artistic expression in hip-hop and breakdance culture.
For the drawings of comic artist Benjamin Kniebe was responsible. The individual images were then animated by the animator Julia Dufek. Since Neukölln Unlimited is a low-budget film, was waived complicated animation and produced the drama with the help of music and sound design, and not least by the story of Hassan.
Locations
In the film, the gym is the Rütli School hosts a breakdance battles, taking part in the B -Boy Maradona. Other known locations in the film are the East Side Gallery, the Soviet War Memorial in Treptower Park and the former techno club E-Werk.
Festivals
The film premiered at the Berlinale 2010 in the section Generation 14plus, where he also won the Crystal Bear for the Best Feature Film.
Awards and nominations
- Berlinale 2010: Crystal Bear for best feature film in the section Generation 14plus (won )
- Price of the German Film Critics 2011 ( nominated )
- Peace Film Award 2010 ( nominated )
- Buster Film Festival 2010, Copenhagen: for best documentary (won )
- Chicago International Children's Film Festival: for best feature-length documentary (won )
- Movies That Matter Film Festival, The Hague; Movie Quad All Rights Award for Best Youth Film (won )
- German Documentary Film Award ( nominated )
Reception
The film received after its premiere and theatrical release mostly positive reviews from the press:
" Neukölln Unlimited shows that behind hard Statements extremely differentiated people are who have developed an impressive stand-up mentality ," writes Bernd Buder from filmdienst. This is a documentary that "close to his protagonist remains " and their contradictions " logged unvarnished ".
" Neukölln Unlimited is not just a migration drama in which the arbitrariness of the German deportation is clear, it is also a breakdance movie," states Jan Kedves of the taz clear. That the film carries a " slightly megalomaniac " title, shows that the directors Agostino Imondi and Dietmar Ratsch " wanted to get serious with the promise that they gave Hassan at the beginning of the shooting: that it would be a great movie ."
" Have Imodi ratchet and created a vibrant, visually ambitious portrait of the most infamous Berlin Kiez ", Nadine Lange writes in the Tagesspiegel; especially was Neukölln Unlimited " a clever contribution to the often heated debate over immigrant children ".
Hannah Pilarczyk of Spiegel Online said the film " should make for bewilderment among multicultural skeptics ". During the film, Maradona skidding slowly into the center: " You start to make him worry, but also to fret that he does not respect the use of his siblings. He ultimately proves that the medienwirksamste story is still that of the difficult, always vulnerable integration. The representative history it is therefore not yet long - and because the Neukölln Unlimited is just as emphatically clear, the film has all the enthusiasm just yet earned ".
Anna -E. Younes of di.wan asks why the film remains rooted in a neoliberal logic, "in the" failure " is attributed to the individual, but not as the " system "?" ... Neukölln Unlimited is thus " also a call that issues such as integration, deportation, social exclusion and denial need to be addressed more often - maybe this time with less effects, but with more content - even if that is sometimes harder to digest and does not come in too many theaters. "