Carolin Maiwald

Caught Between Outside & Inside

Last Year in Utopia documents an experimental set-up: a staged group media experiment, isolated from the outside world, is reconstructed on the site where the original events unfolded. The boundaries between autonomy and heteronomy dissolve in new role assignments as the film makes the power structure behind the artificially created utopia visible.

The unlikely police pair Verena Berthold and Otto Garber are part of a special task force investigating organized crime in Berlin. He comes from the east, she from the west of Berlin. He's a redneck, she's from a better background. This causes conflict. Over time, things start to sizzle between the two. Their team includes the agile German-Turkish Yücsel and the sluggish Georg, who, like Verena and Otto, are constantly bickering. The department manager is Lothar Reddemann. Sputnik is a former colleague of Otto's from the People's Police and is constantly coming up with new business ideas for stores and pubs where the team meets.