Project Description

Sunny Lane (Sonnenallee) by Karim Aïnouz. Brazil/UAE, Super 8 to Digital, Colour, 12 minutes, 2011. Written and directed by Karim Aïnouz Edited by Isabela Monteiro de Castro Cinematography: Karim Aïnouz Sound: Jon Kadocsa Production: DETAiL Film Commissioned by Sharjah Art Foundation

Sunny Lane is Sonnenallee in German, a famous street in the south west of Berlin, home to a large number of Arab immigrants. When the Berlin Wall was still dividing the city, a young man was shot while trying to cross to West Berlin near a checkpoint on Sonnenallee. He was the last fugitive to be shot dead before the fall of the Wall. Sunny Lane is an essay on border crossing and exile. It is a film about an imaginary place – a road filled with snow, a horizon exploding with rain, the blinking lights of a nocturnal fairground.

April 2011