Director: Rudolf Steiner
Script: Rudolf Steiner,
Sami Kovacevic, Bernd Manzke,
Volker Guhlich
Camera: Volker Tittel

Cast: Michael Wrzesinski,
Sami Kovacevic, Bernd Manzke,
Volker Guhlich, and Eva Lissa

Trailer


Stefan, Bernd, Sam, Norman, and Volker, five young Berliners, live their lives from day to day in a non-conformist way. Especially the unemployed Stefan, called Fanta. He is a pure anti-bourgeois gay.

Music brings them together. They practise in a basement, but run the risk of being thrown out . Too lazy to go upstairs, they keep on peeing in a nearby corridor.

Fanta has had a row with his girl-friend and now he sleeps in laundrettes, or in car dumps. Due to his awkwardness with the police he is finally admitted in a mental hospital. There he makes the acquaintance of 80-year old Lissy (Eva Lissa), an adorable crazy woman who sings and plays the harmonica beautifully. When his friends come to get him out of the funny farm, Fanta insists that Lissy comes with them. Together with "Lissy, the Divine" the group gives a concert on the deserted "Wood Stage". Lissy gets lost and is brought back to the mental hospital after a public appearance in a bank where she mistakes a telefone receiver for a microphone. Upon Lissy`s death Fanta inherits her shawl and a cigarette-holder.

The film opened on November 2, 1989 - a week later, the Berlin Wall was opened and the division of the city between East and West became history. Five Beers and a Coffee became an instant cult-film and ran for 26 weeks in the Berlin cinemas. The film was invited to the Max Ophuls Festival and to International Film Festivals in Moscow and San Sebastian.


Film review from Hans-Ulrich Pönack
in RIAS 2

5 Young Lads, Flippies, Musicians, Chancers, Cellar children.

Their presence, their existence, their everyday expenrience, hfe in and around the slums of West Berlin. The Outlaws of Kreuzberg.

Somehow or other, one of them lands in the funny farm, to be hauled out almost against his will, having discovered Lissy, an eccentric old lady, with a wonderfully approachable and forward.

The Scene, Street slang, anecdotes from the abyss. Direct, unpolished, from the heart, improvised, relaxed, funny. A contemporary, loud and upfront version of Zur Sache Schätzchen. Or, when Asterix and his gang of Gauls were really a gang from the Berlin backstreets with their vagabond lyricism. Ironic, cheeky, no-one to blame, no wagging finger, or moral indignation. Simply themselves. A small, scruffy, yet bold film.

With none of the excuses and predictablility of "subsidised film-making" and therefore full of energy, atmosphere and anarchic charm - a "B" movie that scores.