What was it that for seven years made Bar25 the signifier of Berlin’s famed club scene, regarded as a Mecca by Berliners and tourists alike until a protracted struggle with Mediaspree eventually closed its doors for good in 2010? Unfortunately, despite the interviewees’ relentless (too often self-) adulation – one goes so far as claiming that they were “riding at the vanguard of evolution” – the documentary’s images and surprisingly spiritless soundtrack fail to capture the magic of the Spree-side techno wonderland, disappointing both as a testament and as a fount of nostalgia.
Bar25 – Tage außerhalb der Zeit | D: Britta Mischer, Nana Yuriko (Germany 2012), documentary. Starts May 3