Punk in East Berlin was something completely different from punk in London, New York, or Düsseldorf. As a punk in East Berlin you were an enemy of the state; you were wanted by the Stasi and by the Volkspolizei. Punks were harassed, bullied, and imprisoned – pop turned into politics. The film »ostPunk! too much future« [»East Punk! Too Much Future«] tells the incredible stories of this era by chronicling the lives of six protagonists. It’s a portrait about the desire to resist. The film was created and co-directed by Carsten Fiebeler and Michael Boehlke and based on a book by Henryk Gericke (»Too much future. Punk in der DDR«).
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About »Too Much Future«
It doesn’t downplay the role of punk in the West to say that in the East, in the GDR, it was a different, absolutely crucial affair. In East Berlin and elsewhere, politics came before pop; young people reacted to scarcity rather than to consumerist hell, and offered resistance against an invasive, dogmatic system. However, involuntarily hopes, demands, and needs made people within the forced collective into outsiders. Today an author, DJ, and curator, Henryk Gericke was a singer in the East Berlin punk band The Leistungsleichen in the early 80s and later put out many publications in the political and artistic underground. In connection with numerous exhibitions and publications he’s co-organised, Gericke now looks for three consecutive festival days at subculture on the other side of the Wall(s), and at the punk movement in particular. This programme focus combines talks, musical talk-performances as »preludes«, a film screening, and a DJ set.