PÖFF opens TV series section with Babylon Berlin premiere

The Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF) is showcasing new television series, with the first film from the fifth season of German drama Babylon Berlin opening its TV-Beats section on Sunday, ERR reports. The full series is also available on ERR’s Jupiter streaming platform.

Directed by Tom Tykwer, the series is set in Berlin before the Second World War. Its fifth season deals with the Nazis’ seizure of power and their subsequent decline, events that have left a deep mark on present-day Germany.

The series’ music was recorded under the direction of Kristjan Järvi, whose collaboration with Tykwer has lasted 20 years. Järvi also has a small supporting role in the series. He said current political developments have made Babylon Berlin especially relevant, adding that change begins with the individual.

“If we can look back at something that has already happened from where we are now, and see ourselves in it, we can ask whether we can change something in the character I identify with most in this film,” Järvi said. “If I see and feel that I can, then the world begins to shift a little towards another place.”

Babylon Berlin also premiered at PÖFF. The festival’s television series section helped launch the international sales success of the Estonian series Traitor.

Marge Liiske, head of the festival’s film industry platform, said early episodes are worth watching at the festival because audiences can meet the people who made them. Viewers can ask how a large-scale production such as Babylon Berlin is written and directed over a decade, and what challenges its creators face, she said. The period drama is also more immersive and impressive on the big screen, Liiske added.