Top 150 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2019: #88. Alexanderplatz – Burhan Qurbani

Alexanderplatz

Alfred Doblin’s acclaimed 1929 novel Berlin Alexanderplatz has been remade as Alexanderplatz for Afghan-German director Burhan Qurbani’s fourth feature. First adapted in 1931, Doblin’s seminal text was famously made into a fifteen-hour television series by Rainer Werner Fassbinder in 1980. Produced by Leif Alexis, Jochen Laube and Fabian Maubach through Sommerhaus Filmproduktion, Lemming Film, ZDF, and Arte, the film is lensed by cinematographer Yoshi Heimrath (who also worked on Qurbani’s Shahada in 2010 for We Are Young. We Are Strong in 2014). Starring in the lead is Welket Bungue, supported by Jella Haase, Joachim Krol and Annabelle Mandeng. Qurbani competed for the Golden Bear in 2010 with Shahada. His 2014 title We Are Young. We Are Strong premiered at the Rome Film Festival.

Gist: Qurbani and co-scribe Martin Behnke update Doblin’s text to 2015 Berlin to tell the story of 30-year-old refugee Francis, sole survivor of boat which crossed the Mediterranean illegally. Without citizenship papers, Francis is drawn into the underbelly of the city.

Release Date/Prediction: Qurbani completed a two-month shoot in July 2018, with theatrical release set in Germany for April 2019. We expect Qurbani to be announced as a Berlin 2019 competitor.