Next Door (Nebenan)

BAFTA nominee Daniel Brühl (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) makes his directorial debut with this meta dark comedy playing a thinly-veiled version of himself who, right before flying off for a casting call on a superhero film, opts to have a final few drinks in his local bar.

Daniel (Brühl) leads an enviable life. A famous actor, he lives in a stylish penthouse apartment in Berlin’s hip Prenzlauer Berg district with his wife and children. One morning, as he prepares to jet off to London to screen-test for a ‘top-secret’ new American superhero blockbuster, he pops into the local dive bar to kill some time. There, he meets middle-aged Bruno (Peter Kurth, Babylon Berlin), initially dismissing him as a(nother) fan. But far from it, Bruno’s in fact Daniel’s neighbour, and has been awaiting this moment.

Bruno sees himself as one of reunification’s losers and a victim of the gentrification of what was once East Berlin and – as the pair banter, and he begins nitpicking the increasingly exasperated (and now late for his flight) Daniel’s career – he gradually reveals a far more intimate knowledge of Daniel’s life than is comfortable…

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