Babylon Berlin


Babylon Berlin is a German neo-noir television series. It is created, written and directed by Tom Tykwer, Achim von Borries and Hendrik Handloegten, based on novels by German author Volker Kutscher. The series takes place in Berlin during the Weimar Republic, starting in 1929. It follows Gereon Rath, a police inspector on assignment from Cologne who is on a secret mission to dismantle an extortion ring, and Charlotte Ritter, police clerk by day, flapper by night, who is aspiring to become a police inspector.
The series premiered on 13 October 2017 on Sky 1, a German-language entertainment channel broadcast by Sky Deutschland. The first release consisted of a continuous run of sixteen episodes, with the first eight officially known as Season 1, and the second eight known as Season 2. Netflix released the first two seasons in the U.S., Canada, and Australia. The second run of twelve episodes, officially known as Season 3, premiered on 24 January 2020 on Sky 1.

Cast

Main

Development

The series was co-directed by Tom Tykwer, Hendrik Handloegten, and Achim von Borries, who also wrote the scripts. The first two seasons of the show were filmed over eight months beginning in May 2016.
German public broadcaster ARD and pay TV channel Sky co-produced the series, a first time collaboration in German television. As part of the arrangement, Sky broadcast the series first, and ARD started broadcasts by free-to-air television on 30 September 2018. Netflix purchased rights for the United States, Canada, and Australia, where the series became available in 2018 with English dubbing and subtitles.
The series is described as the most expensive television drama series in Germany, with a budget of €40 million that increased to €55 million due to reshoots.

Later seasons

After a year-long production hiatus, the show resumed production in late 2018 with an extended six-month shoot for the third season of Babylon Berlin; filming was completed in May 2019. At the 32nd European Film Awards in December 2019, showrunners Achim von Borries, Henk Handloegten and Tom Tykwer stated that the third season was in post-production and that a fourth season is planned.
The third season was developed loosely around the second novel in Volker Kutscher's trilogy The Silent Death. The showrunners chose to diverge from the source material to better address the social and political unrest during the time period as they felt that Weimar Republic is often overlooked by both media and historical sources. The third season is set in late 1929 around the Black Tuesday stock market crash and navigates the rise of the subversive Black Reichswehr and Communist political groups as well as the advent of talkies.
In a January 2020 interview with Berliner Zeitung, actress Liv Lisa Fries said that production will likely begin on the fourth season in late 2020 or early 2021.

Era

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, one of the show's co-creators, Tom Tykwer, spoke about the era:
“At the time people did not realize how absolutely unstable this new construction of society which the Weimar Republic represented was. It interested us because the fragility of democracy has been put to the test quite profoundly in recent years... By 1929, new opportunities were arising. Women had more possibilities to take part in society, especially in the labour market as Berlin became crowded with new thinking, new art, theatre, music and journalistic writing." Nonetheless, Tykwer insisted that he and his co-directors were determined not to idealize the Weimar Republic. "People tend to forget that it was also a very rough era in German history. There was a lot of poverty, and people who had survived the war were suffering from a great deal of trauma."

In the first season, Communists, Soviets and especially Trotskyists play a prominent role. The show depicts what became known as Blutmai, violence between Communist demonstrators and members of the Berlin Police in early May 1929, and extra-legal paramilitary formations promoted by the German army, known as the Black Reichswehr. Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler, on the other hand, is only mentioned in passing during the first two seasons of Babylon Berlin.

Locations

The Babelsberg Studio created an addition to its Metropolitan Backlot for the filming of the series and for future productions, in form of a large permanent standing set, lauded by the company as one of the largest in Europe. The set includes representations of various neighbourhoods of Berlin, including the prevailing economic classes, and also includes the large exterior of the night club Moka Efti. In addition, the series was filmed throughout Berlin and at other locations in Germany. Numerous scenes were filmed on Alexanderplatz in front of the historic. The police headquarters, once located directly behind it, and other surrounding buildings, were destroyed in WWII, but were recreated with computer simulations. The Rotes Rathaus was used for most closeup scenes involving the exterior of the police headquarters, because their red brick appearance and architectural style are very similar. Interiors of the police headquarters lobby were filmed at the Rathaus Schöneberg, including scenes with its paternoster elevator, while the elegant Ratskeller restaurant in the same building was used as the nearby café Aschinger in multiple scenes. Interior scenes in the Moka Efti were filmed at the Delphi Cinema in Berlin-Weissensee. A lengthy suspense sequence set during a performance of The Threepenny Opera, was filmed at the historic Theater am Schiffbauerdamm, where the play actually ran at the time. Other scenes were filmed on Museum Island and in the Hermannplatz U-Bahn station in Berlin, and the Church of the Redeemer on the Havel river in Potsdam. The scenes set on the estate of the Nyssen family were filmed at Schloss Drachenburg, a castle in the Rhineland. Scenes involving a steam train were filmed at the Bavarian Railway Museum near Nördlingen.

Music

In 2018, the show formed an in-house band to perform the original music of the show, The Moka Efti Orchestra. The group plays period-era music in a variety of styles ranging from ragtime to klezmer. Named after the nightclub featured in Babylon Berlin, The Moka Efti Orchestra is a fourteen-member group and is fronted by the Lithuanian actress Severija Janušauskaitė as Svetlana Sorokina. In the first double episode of the first season, Janušauskaitė's character, crossdressing as the male singer Nikoros, performs the main theme of the series, "Zu Asche, zu Staub" in the Moka Efti cabaret. This song was later released under the pseudonym "Severija" and charted on the German singles chart.
The group performed in concert in May 2018 and, due to popular demand, toured the country later that year. With the release of the third season of the show, the musical group released their debut album Erstausgabe.
In addition to period music, "Dance Away", from the 1979 album Manifesto by Roxy Music, plays occasionally in the background and also included is an adaptation of "These Foolish Things" and, in the Season Two finale, a Russian version of "Gloomy Sunday". Singer Bryan Ferry of Roxy Music appears toward the end of the first season as a cabaret singer.

Broadcast

Babylon Berlin premiered in Germany on 13 October 2017 and in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland on Sunday, 5 November 2017. The series debuted in Australia, Canada, and the United States on 30 January 2018. Broadcasting on the German TV channel Das Erste started Sunday 30 September 2018. The Swedish broadcast began on 19 June 2019 on SVT.
After early indications of a late 2019 premiere, it was finally announced that the third season would premiere in Germany on Sky 1 on 24 January 2020; the season will be broadcast on German public television station ARD in late 2020. The international distribution rights for the third season were sold to more than one hundred countries and many different networks including Netflix, HBO Europe, and Viasat in early 2019.
In territories where the show is distributed by Netflix, the third season was released in its entirety on 1 March 2020.

Episodes

The first and second seasons, of eight episodes each, were written as one complete story and filmed as one continuous production. They premiered as one unbroken block, numbered 1-16, and have been broadcast throughout the world as one block. In addition, all 16 episodes of both seasons were made available simultaneously on Netflix. However, in many territories the show was broadcast as a single season comprising eight double-length episodes.
The second block of 12 episodes are officially known as Season 3 but will be broadcast as Season 2 in those territories where the previous episodes premiered as a single unbroken block.

Season 1 (2017)

All episodes were written and directed by Henk Handloegten, Achim von Borries, and Tom Tykwer.

Season 2 (2017)

The second-season episodes were written and directed by Henk Handloegten, Achim von Borries, and Tom Tykwer.

Season 3 (2020)

Critical reception

On Rotten Tomatoes the first season holds approval rating of 100% based on 30 reviews, with the critics consensus reading: "Babylon Berlins humor and humanity pair nicely with its hypnotic visuals, resulting in a show that dazzles within its oversaturated genre." As of April 2019, Babylon Berlin was the highest rated non-English language show on Sky TV.
Carolin Ströbele of Die Zeit praised the pilot, saying that it "is highly dynamic and unites sex, crime and history in a pleasantly unobtrusive manner." Christian Buss, cultural critic from Der Spiegel, praised the series for staying true to the tradition of "typically German angst cinema", in the vein of 1920s silent movies such as Fritz Lang's Metropolis or Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. "It could be that Babylon Berlin is the first big German TV production since Das Boot which enjoys really relevant success abroad. Let's not be shy to say it: we are big again – as the world champions of angst."
German historian Thomas Weber commented in an interview with The Wall Street Journal on 28 January 2018, "From an historical perspective, the series is very acute in showing how Weimar Democracy was under attack both from the Communist Left, as well as by traditional Conservatives, in a kind of unholy alliance." In the same interview, Babylon Berlin co-writer Henk Handloegten commented, "One of the main reasons to make Babylon Berlin was to show how all these Nazis did not just fall from the sky. They were human beings who reacted to German society's changes and made their decisions accordingly."

Accolades

The series itself received several awards in 2018. These included a Bambi in the category Beste Serie des Jahres , four awards at the Deutscher Fernsehpreis, a special Bavarian TV Award and a Romy for TV event of the year. In the same year, everyone majorly involved with the production of the series won a Grimme-Preis, including Volker Bruch, Liv Lisa Fries, Peter Kurth, the three directors and several members of the technical team. Bruch also won a Goldene Kamera in the category Best German actor for his portrayal of Gereon Rath.
The series' opening title sequence, created by German designer Saskia Marka and featuring a theme composed by Johnny Klimek and Tom Tykwer, was named the best title sequence of 2018 by industry website Art of the Title.
In December 2019, the European Film Academy awarded the series with the inaugural Achievement in Fiction Series Award at the European Film Awards.

Awards

YearAwardCategoryNomineeResult
2017CamerimageBest PilotBabylon Berlin
2018Adolf Grimme AwardsOutstanding PilotBabylon Berlin
2018Bambi AwardsBest Television Show – NationalBabylon Berlin
2018Bambi AwardsBest Actress – NationalLiv Lisa Fries
2018Bambi AwardsBest Actor – NationalPeter Kurth
2018Bavarian TV AwardsSpecial AwardBabylon Berlin
2018German Screen Actors AwardsBest Supporting ActressLeonie Benesch
2018German Screen Actors AwardsBest Leading ActorPeter Kurth
2018German Television Academy AwardsBest Costume DesignPierre-Yves Gayraud
2018German Television Academy AwardsBest Make UpKerstin Gaecklein, Roman Braunhofer
2018German Television Academy AwardsBest ScoreTom Tykwer, Johnny Klimek
2018German Television Academy AwardsBest Visual EffectsRobert Pinnow
2018German Television Academy AwardsBest StuntsDana Stein
2018German Television Academy AwardsBest EditorDana Stein
2018German Television AwardsBest SeriesBabylon Berlin
2018German Television AwardsBest CinematographyFrank Griebe, Bernd Fischer, Philipp Haberlandt
2018German Television AwardsBest MusicJohnny Klimek, Tom Tykwer
2018German Television AwardsBest Production and Costume DesigePierre-Yves Gayraud, Uli Hanisch
2018German Television AwardsBest Directing for a Movie Made for Television or MiniseriesTom Tykwer, Henk Handloegten, Achim von Borries
2018German Television AwardsBest ActressLiv Lisa Fries
2018German Television AwardsBest ActorPeter Kurth
2018German Television AwardsBest EditingAlexander Berner, Claus Wehlisch, Antje Zynga
2018Golden Camera AwardsBest German ActorVolker Bruch
2018Golden Umbrella Television AwardsBest CinematographyBernd Fischer, Philipp Haberlandt, Frank Griebe
2018Golden Umbrella Television AwardsBest DirectorAchim von Borries, Tom Tykwer, Henk Handloegten
2018Golden Umbrella Television AwardsBest CastingSimone Bär
2018Ondas AwardsBest IntenationalTelevision SeriesBabylon Berlin
2018Romy Gala AwardsTelevision Event of the YearBabylon Berlin
2018Seoul International Drama AwardsGrand PrizeBabylon Berlin
2018Magnolia AwardsBest International Television ShowBabylon Berlin
2019SXSW Film Design AwardExcellence in Title DesignSaskia Marka
2019European Film AwardsEuropean Achievement in Fiction Series AwardBabylon Berlin
2020German Screen Actors AwardsBest Supporting ActorLars Eidinger
2020German Camera AwardsBest CinematographyChristian Almesberger, Bernd Fischer, Philipp Haberlandt
2020German Television AwardsBest Drama SeriesBabylon Berlin
2020Romy Gala AwardsFavorite Actor in a SeriesKarl Markovics