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Reunification review: Berlinale film explores Friedrichstrasse after the fall of the Wall

While historic scenes of celebrations at the Brandenburg Gate spread worldwide as Germany reunified, four filmmakers documented the quiet, contrasting everyday life at Friedrichstrasse station in 1990. A thought-provoking, unusual look back at the 90s at this year's Berlinale.

READ MORE : http://www.euronews.com/2026/02/20/reunification-review-berlinale-film-explores-friedrichstrasse-after-the-fall-of-the-wall

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Transcript
00:00Today, Berlin's Friedrichstrasse station is a busy transport hub.
00:05It's easy to forget in everyday life that the station was once a central border crossing point.
00:12With their film, Berlin Friedrichstrasse 1990, Lili Grotter, Konstanze Binder, Ulrika Herden and Julia Kunert
00:21captured this history as a contemporary witness to the fall of the Berlin Wall.
00:46The film was deliberately shot from two perspectives, Lili Grotter and Konstanze Binder with west-german experience,
00:55Ulrika Herden and Julia Kunert with east-german backgrounds.
01:20For a long time, Friedrichstrasse was a place of fear and control.
01:25The documentary shows the change through conversations with border guards, travelers and saleswomen during the fall of the Berlin Wall,
01:33including a few humorous scenes.
01:48The film captures how the station changed within a few months in the midst of the everyday life of travelers.
01:55Between arriving and departing trains, the border booths were dismantled piece by piece after reunification, and in the end, only
02:04dust remained on the platforms.
02:18For Grotter, the station is still an interesting topic for a documentary to this day, with the station
02:25having previously offered routes like the historic Paris Moscow Express.
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