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Berlin Calling is a 2008 German film directed by Hannes Stöhr and starring Paul Kalkbrenner, who plays DJ Ickarus, a Berlin techno producer at the peak of his career about to release his most important album. After consuming an ecstasy pill adulterated with PMA, Ickarus suffers a psychosis and ends up admitted to a psychiatric clinic. The rest of the film unfolds between therapy sessions and attempts to finish the album from inside the clinic. What makes Berlin Calling special isn’t just the story. It’s that Kalkbrenner composed the entire soundtrack himself, including “Sky and Sand”, the track he recorded with his brother Fritz that became the longest-running single in the history of the German charts, with 129 weeks on the list. The film was shot in real venues from the Berlin scene, including Maria am Ostbahnhof and Bar 25, giving it an authenticity that few films about club culture have managed to achieve. It premiered at the Locarno Film Festival in 2008. It wasn’t underground or mainstream. It was exactly what it appeared to be: someone from inside the scene telling a story from the inside, with the right music and the right locations. For many people it was the first real window into what it meant to live in the Berlin techno scene. @iampaulkalkbrenner