PODCAST |Chiara Nicoletti interviews Daniel Bruhl, director and actor of the film Next Door.
For his directorial debut Next Door, in competition at the 71st Berlinale, actor turned director Daniel Bruhl questions all the contradictions of fame and society itself in a theatre play structure story where a famous actor is forced to have a confrontation with a neighbour who knows everything about him and can destroy him. Bruhl chose to interpret the protagonist of the film whose name is Daniel as the director plays with the ambiguity and the duplicity of his real life references and the fictional happenings in the film. Daniel is confronted with his own lies, his contradictions and demons and the audience will be forced to question themselves and watch out for their neighbors.
Next Door : Berlin, the Prenzlauer Berg district. Daniel is a movie star accustomed to success. His loft apartment is stylish and so is his wife, and the nanny has the children under control. Everything is tip-top, bilingual and ready for him to jet off to an audition in London where a role in an American superhero film awaits the celebrated German-Spanish actor. Popping into the local bar on the corner, he finds Bruno sitting there. As transpires by the minute, Bruno has been waiting for this moment for a long time. And so this eternally overlooked man – one of reunification’s losers and a victim of the gentrification of what was once East Berlin – takes his revenge. With Daniel as his target…
To discover more about the 71st edition of Berlin International Film Festival, click here.
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