Sonnenallee

Sonnenallee (1999) is Leander Haußmann's German comedy, free to watch online on iFILM. It plays out in 1970s East Berlin, on the short stub of a street that dead-ends right at the Berlin Wall. Here teenager Micha is growing up, and big politics matters far less to him than rock records and one unreachable girl.

Tourists ride up to the Wall from the West to gawk at the "Easterners," border guards stand watch, a nosy beat cop prowls the stairwells, and loudspeakers spit Party slogans. Micha and his friends couldn't care less: their world is smuggled Rolling Stones singles, cheap wine, first cigarettes and Miriam (Teresa Weißbach), who can stop traffic just by walking past. To win her notice Micha will try anything, even forging a diary full of invented confessions. The absurdity of everyday socialist life is shown here with a warm grin rather than bitterness.

Thomas Brussig adapted the script from his own novella, and the film became a touchstone of German "Ostalgie" — fondness for the vanished GDR without the heavy ideology. Light, music-filled and unexpectedly tender, it argues that youth is just as foolish and happy on either side of any wall. Stream Sonnenallee (1999) online on iFILM.