Berlin U-Bahn - Films, Music and Merchandising

Films, Music and Merchandising

The Berlin U-Bahn has appeared in numerous films and music videos. Offering access to stations, tunnels, and trains, the BVG cooperates with film-makers, although a permit is required.

Whether set in Berlin or elsewhere, the U-Bahn has had at least a minor role in a large number of movies and television programmes, including Emil und die Detektive (2001), Otto – Der Film (1985), Peng! Du bist tot (1987) featuring Ingolf Lück, Run Lola Run (1998), and several Tatort episodes. The previously unused Reichstag station was used to shoot scenes of the movies Resident Evil and Equilibrium.

Möbius 17, by Frank Esher Lämmer and Jo Preussler from Berlin, tells the story of an U-Bahn train that, caught in a Möbius strip, travels through alternate universes after a new line is built. Alexanderplatz station plays an essential role in Berlin Alexanderplatz — a film of thirteen hour-long chapters and one epilogue — produced in 1980 by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, based on the book by Döblin. The film's scenes feature a recreation of the station as it was in 1928—rather darker and dirtier than in the 21st century. In the surrealistic two-hour epilogue, Fassbinder transforms parts of the station into a slaughterhouse where people are killed and dissected.

Since 2001, the Berlin U-bahn has hosted the annual short-film festival Going Underground. Short films (up to 90 seconds long) are shown on the monitors found in many of the U-Bahn trains. Passengers on board vote for the festival winner.

Sandy Mölling, former singer of the pop band No Angels, shot the video for her single "Unnatural Blonde" in the U-Bahn station Deutsche Oper. Kate Ryan, Overground, Böhse Onkelz, Xavier Naidoo, Die Fantastischen Vier, and the DJ duo Blank & Jones have all used the U-Bahn and its stations for their videos as well.

"Linie 1", a musical performed by Berlin's Grips-Theater, is set completely in stations and trains of the Berlin U-Bahn; a movie version has also been produced.

In 2002, the BVG cooperated with design students in a project to create underwear with an U-Bahn theme, which, in English, they named "Underwear". They used the names of real stations that, in the context of underwear, appeared to be mild sexual double entendres: men's underpants bore labels with Rohrdamm (pipe dam), Onkel Toms Hütte (Uncle Tom's Cabin), and Krumme Lanke (crooked lake); the women's had Gleisdreieck (triangle track), and Jungfernheide (virgin heath). After the first series sold out quickly, several others were commissioned, such as Nothammer (emergency hammer), and Pendelverkehr (shuttle service; though Verkehr also means "intercourse" and Pendel also means "pendulum"). They were withdrawn from sale in 2004.