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Reinvention is a necessary survival skill in Berlin, a once-divided city now rumored to be a place of freedom and self-discovery, but where the constant pressure to stay afloat can threaten the most creative and resilient of us. To stay alive, you might have to wander off the beaten track.​
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This short documentary follows Wolfgang, a Berliner who opens his apartment to anyone who needs a song, a cheap beer, and some Jobcenter guidance. Around him are the KJs and MCs who run nights in bars, basements, and queer clubs all over the city. They are part of the (you guessed it) often offbeat soundtrack of post-techno Berlin, a place built on reinvention where history is still graffiti’d on every U-bahn station and echoes of a repressive past ring out concerningly louder.
Berlin loves to talk about liberation. You hear it in the clubs, you see it on posters, it’s part of the myth that draws people here. But reality hits harder. Rents climb, bureaucracy never sleeps, and the people who make the city vibrant often struggle the most to stay. The queer community, the artists, the newcomers who came here chasing that promise of freedom, are the ones fighting to hold onto it.
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Through karaoke, OFFBEAT asks what liberation really looks like when it isn’t guaranteed. The film moves from bedrooms where new looks take shape to the S-bahn at dawn to bars where drag meets heartbreak and pop anthems become survival songs.
Karaoke here is not a guilty pleasure. It is resistance, release, and a way to connect when everything feels like an uphill battle. OFFBEAT celebrates the people who keep singing even when the city makes it hard to be heard.
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DIRECTOR'S NOTE
I didn’t mean to become a karaoke host. Does anyone? One night I was at the bar when it was nearly completely dead, five people in the audience, nobody brave enough to dance along to the warbling sound of Total Eclipse of the Heart. I spent the night hyping them up just to keep things alive, and by the end someone told the manager I should work there. The next week, I did. You’ll get to hear said manager’s take on this story in this film!
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That was almost three and a half years ago. I’ve been an MC, or KJ (karaoke jockey) ever since. What started as a random night out became a second life I never expected, especially for someone who can’t actually sing. I work in documentary production, mostly in archives and history, and I’d gotten used to chasing stories that already happened. Karaoke is the opposite. It’s messy, immediate, alive, and slightly unhinged in the best way.
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Wolfgang has been one of my regulars for my entire time behind the booth, no matter the bar I bounced around to. He’s this (nearly, but spiritually) Berlin original who turns his apartment into an open karaoke salon once a month. Anyone can come by, and his network originates from his volunteer work, connecting immigrants to administrative help in the city. He knows everyone, remembers what songs they like, and always manages to keep the chaos welcoming. After a while, I realized there was no way not to make a film about him and the people around this scene.
OFFBEAT isn’t a film about perfect voices or nightlife aesthetics. It’s about Berlin as it really feels right now, people trying to reinvent themselves in a city that makes you work hard for it. It’s also about the unexpected helpers, the nights that make you think everything will be okay, and the mornings when you wonder if it’s all been a lie. It’s about the contradiction between liberation and survival, between who you want to be and what the city demands.
For me, karaoke became a way to see that more clearly. It’s where people show up as themselves, or as who they wish they could be, and the crowd meets them halfway. It’s awkward, funny, sometimes emotional, and always real.
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- Ilana