Questioning his role within the soul-thieving conformity of mid-'80s Mexico City, 17-year-old Carlos is loath to participate in adolescent machismo antics, preferring instead to tinker with electronics while listening to classic rock. He has a kindred spirit and best friend in Gera—and a burgeoning infatuation with Gera's untouchably cool sister Rita, an artist at ease with her outsider status. When Rita invites Carolos and Gera to see her band at the infamous avant-garde club Azteca, they're introduced to an uninhibited world of performance art, edgy music and sexual fluidity—welcome counteragents to two-fisted teen politics and the imminent threat of adulthood. Inspired by club owner and progressive artist Nico, wide-eyed Carlos experiments with identity politics, tasting the forbidden fruits of hedonism at the expense of Gera’s devotion.
“Smart, good-looking and buzzing with edginess, Sama's fourth feature has been made with a love and care that's palpable in every frame.” —Jonathan Holland, Hollywood Reporter
“One of the best of its particular subgenre… Anyone who actually participated in such ’80s avant-gardism will admire the exactitude with which Sama and his collaborators re-create the…underground multimedia art in practice at the time.” —Dennis Harvey, Variety
“Offers penetrating insight into the anarchic counterculture world of 1980s Mexico. It’s an era that we’ve rarely seen in cinema before…Youth is messy, it’s unpredictable, it’s unseemly. THIS IS NOT BERLIN embodies all of that with intoxicating gusto.” —Hoai-Tran Bui, slashfilm.com
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