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CULTURE

Berlin gentrification takes spotlight in new film by actor Daniel Brühl

German-Spanish actor Daniel Brühl called on some of his more "humiliating" Hollywood experiences for the black comedy "Next Door", his directorial debut premiering in competition at this week's Berlinale film festival.

Berlin gentrification takes spotlight in new film by actor Daniel Brühl
Brühl in a Berlin 'Kneipe' in a scene from Nebenan. Photo: DPA

The German-Spanish Brühl, who shot to fame aged 25 with the bittersweet Berlinale contender “Good Bye, Lenin!”, is now himself up for the Golden Bear top prize Friday at an event that has gone all-virtual due to the pandemic.

Since his early success, Brühl, now 42, has starred in hits including “Rush”, TV series “The Alienist” and the “Captain America” franchise.

READ ALSO: Germany holds virtual Berlinale film festival 

“Next Door” (Nebenan) tells the story of Daniel, a preening German-Spanish actor played by Brühl who like the director himself lives in a gentrified district of Berlin and is up for a role in a major superhero movie.

On his way to the airport, he stops in at one of the German capital’s traditional corner pubs to rehearse his lines.

‘Vain and narcissistic’

Trying to understand his character’s “motivation”, Daniel frantically calls Marvel executives begging them for more pages of the top-secret screenplay so he can better prepare.

Daniel practises the ridiculous dialogue with a familiar Marvel comics growl while watched by Bruno, a mysterious local sitting at the bar who soon reveals he knows more about Daniel’s life than he should.

Bruno is a native East Berliner who doesn’t take kindly to the wealthy newcomers who have moved into the area and driven up prices, and he’s immune to Daniel’s attempts to charm him.

Their small talk turns combative, then sinister as Bruno shows the unctuous Daniel who actually has the upper hand.

Despite the obvious parallels, Brühl joked, “I’m a vain and narcissistic man but I’m not as horrible as the guy we see in the movie”.

He told AFP he wanted “Next Door” to tackle both the transformation of Berlin, where rents have increased more than 75 percent over the last decade, and the occasional silliness of the entertainment industry.

READ ALSO: In graphs: How gentrification has changed Berlin

“I’m making fun of all the (movie) projects, all the ones that I really loved doing. But I also had some experiences in which I felt ridiculous and humiliated,” he said.

“I mean being sent a page where everything is watermarked and blurred and then you have three lines and don’t have any context and people expect you to pull off some magic performance and you think like ‘what the fuck, what is this?'”

‘Ich bin kein Berliner’

Brühl called it “a very purging, cleansing experience for me to show this humiliating aspect finally in a movie”.

But he admitted to being a little afraid of biting the hand that feeds him with his savage satire.

“Someone like (Marvel president) Kevin Feige — he has a great sense of humour. That’s something I like about Marvel. So I hope that when these guys see the movie they understand the joke,” he said.

He sought inspiration from the Coen brothers and fellow actor-turned-director Julie Delpy for the wild shifts in mood in the movie, which was written by bestselling German author Daniel Kehlmann.

Brühl, who grew up in the western German city of Cologne but whose parents live in Barcelona, has called Berlin’s now upscale Prenzlauer Berg district home since the early 2000s.

He said he wanted to take on the ongoing friction between rich and poor in Berlin as well as easterners and westerners three decades after the Wall fell.

“I was privileged to be rather successful as a young man being an actor,” he said.

“But no matter where I went, I always felt like an invader, be it in Prenzlauer Berg or in Barcelona where I found an apartment in 2010.”

He said that even today, Berlin can still give him that fish-out-of-water feeling.

“Even after 20 years, there’s certain encounters that I have where I truly feel, ‘Ich bin kein Berliner’ (I’m not a Berliner).”

By Deborah Cole

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SPORTS

‘Significant fanbase’: How popular is the NFL in Germany?

For the second year in a row the US's National Football League (NFL) will be playing games in Germany. The Local asked an expert how popular American football is in the soccer-obsessed Bundesrepublik.

'Significant fanbase': How popular is the NFL in Germany?

The Super Bowl, arguably the largest annual sports event in the US, is coming up this Sunday.

Many in Germany will be tuning in, even if that means staying up until 4:30 am to catch the game, famous halftime show and running commentary. 

READ ALSO: Where to watch the Super Bowl in Germany

In fact, US’s National Football League (NFL) has garnered such a following in the Bundesrepublik that US teams will even be crossing the Atlantic twice this year to play in front of live audiences in Frankfurt and Munich.

“I think it’s fair to say that it’s [The NFL] becoming more popular even though we don’t know exactly how much the figures or the interest is rising,” Sebastian Uhrich, a professor of sports management at the University of Cologne, told The Local’s Germany in Focus podcast this week.

“If we have a look at the numbers of the last five years, in for example, the TV audience of the Super Bowl, there’s more of a sidwards trend of these figures, it’s not really rising. But I would assume there’s more people getting interested.” 

Uhrich estimated that the NFL has between two and three million supporters in Germany.

“In Germany obviously there’s a significant fanbase of American football,” he said, adding that it’s the “largest market in Europe”.

That could explain why star player Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers faced the Seattle Seahawks at Munich’s Allianz Arena in November.

It marked the first NFL Game in Germany and tickets quickly sold out.

READ ALSO: Munich and Frankfurt to host regular season NFL games

Seizing on the success, the Kansas City Chiefs and New England Patriots will make their debuts as designated teams in two additional games in Germany later this year.

American Football: Pro League NFL, Tampa Bay Buccaneers - Seattle Seahawks, at the Munich Allianz Arena in November 2022.

American Football: Pro League NFL, Tampa Bay Buccaneers – Seattle Seahawks, at the Munich Allianz Arena in November 2022. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Sven Hoppe

Uhrich sees the games as a big bonus for existing NFL fans in Germany.

“Playing games in Germany provides German consumers, supporters and fans an additional offering, besides all the media offerings,” he said.

“Up until last year they were only able to watch NFL games on TV or on social media. If they wanted to see a game they had to travel to the US, so this is obviously a significant addition to what they can consume.”

But he added that the NFL’s nod to Germany isn’t guaranteed to drum up a significant amount of new support.

“It’s only two games per year so I wouldn’t over estimate the significance,” he said. “I wouldn’t expect this to be the driver of a huge number of additional supporters in the future.”

Could (American) football compete with soccer?

In Germany, the NFL faces tough competition with the by-far most popular sport: soccer, or simply football as non-Americans refer to it.

“I would never expect that they’re able to replace soccer as the most popular sport,” said Ulrich. “So many other sports have been trying to do this for years and they’re not even close.”

Yet Ulrich was optimistic that the NFL could “become part of that second tier of sports,” in Germany which includes hockey, volleyball and basketball.

“Soccer is so traditional and has such a huge fan base in Germany. It might be something that happens in 15 or 20 years but not in the near future. It’s pretty unlikely.”

READ ALSO: American football touches down in Germany

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