The Last Days of Tacheles

Documentary, Color, 90′, 2014

  • Written and directed by Stefano Casertano
  • Original Music by Maya Stern
  • With Angelo Loconte, Husayin Arda, Kerta von Kubin, Graziano Distefano, Antonio Blacco, Claudio Greco

Tacheles Art House was a community independent artists residing in a building in Berlin since 1991, visited by some 500,000 people every year. The building was cleared in September 2012, but some artists kept on squatting in the backyard under snow, rain and sometimes sun.

This is the story of this group of rebels and their attempts to resist eviction (and “gentrification” at large), find a new place and make art. The artists engage in blunt acts of protest and seek ways to resettle in the most diverse places, including a former Cold War espionage station on the outskirts of the city and a remote town in Turkey. After various failed initiatives, when everything is lost, a new hope seems to rise, but a part of Berlin may be gone forever.