Most Berliners know Tempelhof Airport and its gigantic field as a recreation area that invites you to ride bikes, picnic, and sunbathe. The fact that the huge terminal buildings have housed refugees since 2015 doesn‘t garner much attention: the gate that separates the field from the halls also separates two worlds that no little about each other. Maybe an outsider director who isn‘t from Berlin was what was needed to make a film about this place: Karim Ainouz is Brazilian and has lived in Berlin for years and got some recognition for his film PARAIA DO FUTURO. Ainouz lives close to the airport and began filming ZENTRALFLUGHAFEN THF shortly after the huge halls transformed into an emergency accommodation. He spent a good year filming in the halls themselves. He only goes outside and shows the field a few times, the vast expanse that may be a promise of freedom to the refugees who wait for it every day. Life in the emergency shelter is charactersed by tedium and repetition. Some refugees – most of them are from Syria – are satisfied wth the comfort and the all-round care, some complain about the lack of privacy and the slow bureaucratic structures. We encounter some individuals throughout the year, observe their daily tasks, their visits to the authorities, and find out about their hopes and disappointments. Ainouz shows the lives of the refugees in this extreme situaton in a calm and accurate manner, a place that promises freedom that not everyone wll get to experience.

Michael Meyns (INDIEKINO MAGAZIN)

Translation: Elinor Lewy