Synopsis
The documentary LULLABY recounts dreams and longings of the childhood years. And it deals with the remains of those yearnings, after years of facing the daily struggles of adult life. The first lullabies are sung in the intimacy of home, surrounded by loved ones, sheltered and warm. It is the memory of those moments that open the door to a journey into human destinies. The journey also leads through Berlin. We happen upon people at very different stages of their life. Sometimes it’s a brief encounter, a glance in passing, a few sentences or a song. Another time it’s the complete story of a life.There is Chechen poet Apti Bisultanov, who says of himself: “I was once a pure and happy child.” Today he lives in exile in Berlin; once he had been Vice Premier of Chechnya. Detlef Jablonski, born in jail and raised in a foster family, has longed for his mother all his life. He has found comfort in music, writes his own songs and sings in the laymen choir „Different Voices of Berlin“. The choir is conducted by the American jazz musician Jocelyn B. Smith. As the son of deaf parents, Helmut Oehring learned to speak at the age of four. Today he is a renown German composer, awarded with the Arnold
Schoenberg Price in 2008. Santos grew up in a foster family but was passed onto an orphanage. After doing time in jail he tried to inject his feelings into his music, into the lyrics of his songs. And he tries to develop a steady relationship with his son, to be the father he never had.
Tamara Trampe’s and Johann Feindt’s work is a cinematic declaration of love to people of all ages and cultures who live in the German capital. Regardless of money, age or whatsoever: they all travel back in time to their childhood and along the way they speak of love and loneliness. Of dreams that have come true... or not. Of longings that stay. Slow songs and the rough rhythm of the city - together
they create a very special tone.
original version with German or English subtitles available