THE RED COCKATOO

In April 1961 – before anyone had begun to speak of building a wall – 20-year-old Siggi moves to Dresden to start an apprenticeship as a set painter. At a rock ‘n’ roll concert he meets idealistic Luise. Through her he comes into contact with the clique around the notorious dance club “Roter Kakadu”, which is a thorn in the Stasi’s side with its “decadent Western” rock music. Four months before the construction of the Berlin Wall hopes were still high for the newly founded state for workers and farmers. In THE RED COCKATOO Dominik Graf portrays the successive emergence of repression practiced by the soon omnipresent Ministry of State Security with a considerably more critical tone than that exhibited by the “Ostalgia” comedies of the late 1990’s and early 2000’s.