Esto no es Berlin
(This Is Not Berlin)

Film program, MX 2019, 110 min., span. OV + engl. UT

By: Hari Sama

With: Xabiani Ponce de León, José Antonio Toledano, Ximena Romo, Mauro Sánchez Navarro, Klaudia García, Marina de Tavira

Summer 1986, all of Mexico is enthralled by the Football World Cup. Only 17-year-old Carlos isn’t interested in football, but instead in pop music. The monotony of his suburban youth comes to an abrupt end when his friend Gera‘s sister takes them to the infamous club Azteca for the first time, the meeting ground of Mexico City’s queer scene. The two youngsters find themselves in a fascinating world of free love, drugs and excessive performance art – a subculture that questions their still fragile identities and forces both to choose between individualism and the pressure to conform. Pushed forward by a great post-punk soundtrack, director Hari Sama draws an energetic, autobiographical portrait of a young generation that fights with all their might against the social repressions of their time.