Christiane F.
Short description
Christiane F. is a German drama set in West Berlin in the 1970s. It follows Christiane, a teenage girl living with her mother and younger sister in a high-rise housing block. Through a friend she begins going to a popular disco, where she meets a group of older teenagers already using drugs and becomes involved with Detlev, a gentle young man dependent on heroin. What starts as curiosity and experimentation turns into addiction, and her life narrows to the constant search for the next dose. The film is based on the real Christiane Felscherinow's account of her adolescence, published as a book.
Uli Edel directed, working from a screenplay by Herman Weigel and producing alongside Bernd Eichinger, Hans Weth and Bertram Vetter. It was Edel's first feature, followed years later by Last Exit to Brooklyn and, in the 2000s, The Baader Meinhof Complex. Natja Brunckhorst, who was about thirteen during filming, plays Christiane, with Thomas Haustein as Detlev and Christiane Reichelt as Babsi among a credited cast of twenty-four. David Bowie appears as himself.
Made for roughly four million dollars, the film drew a wide audience and has held up over decades: on IMDb it sits at 7.5 from about 35,000 votes, on TMDB at 7.3 from a much smaller base, while the critics' rating of 7.2 from ten reviews places professional and audience responses close together.
What's left behind the scenes
- The film is based on the story of a real youth culture that emerged in Berlin in the 1970s. The film's events unfold between 1975 and 1977, it was filmed in 1980, and released in 1981.
- According to director and screenwriter Uli Edel, the Kurfürstendamm subway station was located in West Berlin, but was patrolled by the East German transport police because it was a transfer point, and filmmakers were not allowed to film there. The result was that the operator was put in a wheelchair, with a box containing the camera on his lap, and only the lens protruding. Uli Edel pushed the wheelchair himself, and Natja Brunckhorst walked in front of it. The filmmakers were only able to pull off this trick once, but some of the footage shot in this way made it into the final cut of the film.
- Babsi, one of the main character's friends, later died of an overdose at the age of 14. She became the youngest victim of drugs in Berlin, and her death, along with other circumstances, helped to draw public attention to the issue of teenage drug addiction.
- In some scenes, real drug addicts and prostitutes were filmed in the background.
- While filming in a public restroom, for which he had no permission, Uli Edel found a large package of heroin hidden there. Edel initially intended to sell it to finance further filming, but while he was persuading producer Bernd Eichinger to support his decision, a young man entered the restroom, and he looked as if he was about to attack Natja Brunckhorst, who was also present. Edel threw the package of drugs to the young man, who caught it on the fly and ran away.
- Christiane F.'s full name is Vera Christiana Felscherinow. She consulted the filmmakers, but did not appear on screen herself.
- The literary source for the screenplay was the book “Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo” by Kai Hermann and Horst Rieck, which tells about the “Zoo Station.” It is claimed that many German teenagers found their end there due to overdoses.
- The film is based on the book "I, My Friends and Heroin" by Kristina Felsherinov.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
