The Story:
In the shadowy underbelly of 1930s Berlin, Jakob Fabian (Hans Peter Hallwachs), a sharp-witted advertising copywriter with a cynical heart, navigates the city’s intoxicating nightlife of jazz-filled bars, decadent clubs, and forbidden pleasures, all while his idealistic spirit quietly mourns the crumbling moral fabric of the Weimar Republic.
As political storms brew with Nazis and Communists clashing in the streets, Fabian’s fragile world unravels: he loses his job, watches his loyal companion Stephan Labude (Hermann Lause) spiral into despair and tragedy over a shattered thesis and lost love, and sees his budding romance with ambitious actress Cornelia Battenberg (Silvia Janisch) fade as she trades passion for stardom in the arms of a influential producer.
Amid a society drowning in listless hedonism and hopeless decay, Fabian’s final bid for redemption leads to a poignant irony—returning home to save a drowning boy, only to succumb to the very currents he could never master, in this chilling portrait of a moralist adrift in a world gone mad.
