AMERICAN CINEMATHEQUE'S BLEAK WEEK:  CINEMA OF DISPAIR  IS HERE!  AS ONE OF OVER A HUNDRED PARTICIPATING  MOVIE THEATERS AROUND THE WORLD, WE'RE OFFERING UP FIVE DOUBLE FEATURES  (WERCKMEISTER HARMONIES / COME & SEE, IN A YEAR OF 13 MOONS / STROCZEK, CHRISTIANE F. / AU HASARD BALTHAZAR) & A CLOSING  7 PLUS HOUR  BELA TARR MONUMENTAL FEATURE  SATANTANGO!

Adapted from actress and musician Cristiane Felscherinow’s harrowing account of her teenage years, Christiane F. depicts the impact of West Berlin’s mid-to-late-70s heroin epidemic on one of its youngest and luckiest survivors. On the cusp of fourteen, David Bowie-worshipping Cristiane (Natja Brunckhorst) begins slipping out from under the watch of her divorced mother (Christiane Lechle) and spending time at hip discotheque Sound. There she falls in love with Detlev (Thomas Haustein), whose recent experiments with heroin soon have her hooked. Working with first-time actors and shooting on location with real-life regulars of Zoo Station’s notorious drug cruising scene, director Uli Edel unflinchingly captures the degradation of each phase of junkie life, from underage prostitution to brutal withdrawals to the seemingly endless vows to “go straight.” Bowie himself appears in a concert performance of “Station to Station”; the film’s soundtrack is a virtual compendium of the epochal musician’s celebrated “Berlin period” and a perfect sonic evocation of nightclubbing’s dark side.

This is one of the most horrifying movies I have ever seen. That it is based on actual events makes it more heartbreaking.Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

"Director Ulrich Edel has spared us none of the grimmest details of a young junkie’s life. And, thank goodness, because he’s managed to destroy a lot of glamorous myths about the subject." - Dwight Brown, Sepia