Tag Archives: 4 Blocks

Back on the Block

ON LOCATION,

As German gangster drama 4 Blocks returns for a second season, DQ visits the Neukolln district of Berlin, where the series is set, to met the cast and creative team behind the show.

Overlooking Berlin’s grand Neukolln Schifffahrtskanal, behind the towering Hotel Estrel, a group of industrial buildings has become home to the cast and crew of German gangster drama 4 Blocks.

Inside one of the studios, lead actor Kida Khodr Ramadan (pictured above) is reprising his role as Toni Hamady, the leader of the Hamady clan who finds himself in a bleak and desperate position. After the events of season one, which saw Toni break his own code by killing someone, he is a lost soul. In the episode-one scene being filmed when DQ visits the set during production of the second season earlier this year, he is losing himself to gambling.

“At the end of season one, we see Toni killing a guy, but at the beginning of the first season, he said, ‘We will never kill someone. That’s a line we won’t push.’ He certainly crossed that line,” Ramadan explains. “That does something to his character, I can assure you. We will see a slightly different Toni who’s haunted by that. It’s putting some pressure on him. It will be thrilling to see him, a character we love, struggle to cope with what happened, coping with new challenges coming from new enemies and taking the show to a whole new level.”

Set one year after the climactic showdown, season two of the TNT Serie drama sees a new enemy, the al-Saafis, enter the fray. Described as an upper-class clan, they export art and have connections to high society – but that doesn’t mean they’re any less criminal. It’s another issue for Toni to deal with as he continues to operate without the support of his brother Abbas, who is toiling away behind bars as he awaits trial for murder.

4 Blocks focuses on the Hamady clan’s criminal activities

“He goes to jail and just feels left alone. He realises this beloved brother of his is not present and his hatred for him just grows because of that,” Veysel Gelin, who plays Abbas, says of his character. “His imagination runs wild. Then there’s a scene with a cop who says, ‘Well, where was your brother these past eight months?’ For him, that is like a volcano erupting, and he realises, ‘Yes, the little wanker, where was he?’ But they always try to make sure they stick to the family, no matter how much they may hate each other in that moment. No one really wants anything bad to happen to the other one. They stick to the family rules but, at the same time, Abbas also wants to show that he is also suited to be the boss now.”

Charting Toni’s rise from immigrant to clan boss, the series has been praised for its authenticity, both in terms of character and its setting, using the Berlin district of Neukölln as the home of the Hamady family. “I think you find people like Tony not just here in Germany but in Scandinavia and Africa,” Ramadan says. “We chose to shoot in Neukölln, where you find more of these people, but the research and background is absolutely solid and there are actually people in Neukölln who now call themselves Toni. It’s not a Mickey Mouse imitation. They say this is the real deal and that’s what they like about it.”

Inspired by a newspaper article about the challenges police face in certain areas of the German capital, notably Neukölln, 4 Blocks was developed by producer Wiedemann & Berg Television, TNT Serie, Kren and writing trio Hanno Hackfort, Bob Konrad and Richard Kropf. With all three writers returning for season two, they found their research process, which has proven key to the show’s grounding in reality, was much easier thanks to the success of season one, which also aired in more than 200 countries on Amazon Prime Video. The series is distributed by TNT Serie owner Turner.

They utilised a “slow and steady approach” ahead of the first season, speaking to journalists, police, politicians and people in the community. That was helped by Ramadan, who was raised in Neukölln and was able to introduce the writers to people living there.

“We had a three-year period of research ahead of season one because we had to do it very slowly and gain people’s confidence,” he says. “Now it’s an instant OK. ‘You’re from 4 Blocks? What can I tell you?’ It’s very easy now.”

The TNT Serie drama had a budget of more than €5.5m for its second season

Behind the camera, Oliver Hirschbiegel (Downfall) and Özgür Yildirim take over directing duties from season one’s Marvin Kren, who remains an executive producer. Together they have sought to echo Kren’s style, but the new run has also meant taking charge of more violent and action-heavy scenes. “The season is pretty much about getting close to the dark souls of these guys, and to their hearts as well – the good aspects and the evil aspects,” Hirschbiegel says. “It’s a good means to make the audience conspire with the naughty things these guys do.

“When it comes to the look and the feel, I think we’re on target to being pretty similar to what you saw in the first season.”

Yildirim says he and Hirschbiegel both took seriously the responsibility that came with inheriting the series from Kren. “But this is not about individual vanities, this is not about realising your own full potential,” he explains, noting similarities between 4 Blocks and his feature films Chiko and Only God Can Judge Me. “We don’t have to forcefully try to deliver some kind of highly stylised craftsmanship, but rather we should try to continue the work that was done in the first season.”

That work helped to cement a gangster series in Germany’s television schedules, with Yildirim claiming 4 Blocks is the country’s first drama to establish itself in the genre. This was achieved by treating the criminals as the protagonists rather than the antagonists.

“It was always odd for me to see that in Germany and, to an extent, the Scandinavian countries, crime drama was always told from the perspective of the police,” says executive producer Quirin Berg. “It was never from the perspective of the gangsters. The perception of the audience was that the police is always able to cope with things – ‘It’s Germany, hey, we have clean streets!’ – which, as we all know, is not the reality.”

Female characters have a more prominent role in season two

Berg accepts season two, which has a budget north of €5.5m (US$6.3m), pushes its real-world grounding, but says genre series are able to stretch the boundaries of traditional dramas. “There is a lot of room for more to come, that’s for certain,” he adds.

Hirschbiegel picks up: “The thing with criminals is they step over lines and the more they do this, they don’t know the word ‘no,’ meaning they have to move on. It’s not easy to be a gangster. You live above the law. You live a free life but you pay a high price for that as well. It’s tough to be the head of a crime organisation, and part of that you will see in this new season as well.”

The focus on family as much as criminality has also given rise to a number of female characters, who are notable not just for their relationships to the men in the series but because of their own values, beliefs and backgrounds.

“If you look at Kalila [Maryam Zaree, Toni’s wife], she’s tough and confronts him. They’re really equal, while Amara [Almila Bagriacik, Toni’s sister] and Latif [Wasiem Taha] have a more conservative relationship,” executive producer Anke Greifeneder says. “Of course, the main thing is the male perspective but we fight a lot for the women’s scenes as well because they make it whole.”

Fellow exec producer Hannes Heyelmann says the varied characters are representative of modern-day Berlin, with none of them playing on stereotypes of Arab women. “Some have been here for a long time, some speak German at home, some speak Arabic, so it varies a lot and that’s what we try to show in the series – that the characters are different, just like they are different in Berlin today or in Germany in general.”

Hackfort says season two sought to challenge the different types of relationships between men and women in the series, with more female characters playing a part in the follow-up run. The writer adds: “It was the biggest challenge to deliver 4 Blocks 2.0, the next step, while keeping the DNA. That was a struggle and it was a long, sometimes painful, sometimes joyful but very intense process. But I think we managed.”

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Around the block

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Mobsters rule a corner of Berlin in German drama 4 Blocks, which has been renewed for a second season before its debut. DQ chats to the team behind the six-part series.

When it comes to mobsters on the small screen, series such as The Sopranos and Gomorrah can claim to rule the roost. But the gangs that run New Jersey and Naples respectively could be pushed off the map by the clan at the centre of a new German drama set on the streets of Berlin.

4 Blocks, which debuts on May 8 on German pay TV network TNT Series, revolves around Ali ‘Toni’ Hamady (Kida Kodr Ramadan), who has made a promise to his wife Kalila to leave behind his life of crime.

4 Blocks is set within the Arab ‘mafia’ in Berlin

But when his brother-in-law gets arrested in a police sting, Toni feels obliged to step up as leader of the clan once again and prevent his hot-headed brother Abbas (German rapper Veysel) from becoming head of the family.

Set across six episodes, 4 Blocks tells a story about friendship and family, betrayal and trust, all within an Arab mob living in the central Berlin district of Neukölln.

It is produced by Oscar-winning studio Wiedemann & Berg Television, with executive producers Quirin Berg, Max Wiedemann, Eva Stadler, Karsten Rühle, Anke Greifeneder and Hannes Heyelmann. The writers are Hanno Hackfort, Bob Konrad and Richard Kropf, with Marvin Kren directing.

4 Blocks was originally conceived as a series told from the point of view of the police, but executives from TNT Serie owner Turner felt that premise was too straightforward and formulaic. Instead, they wanted to tell the story from the perspective of the Arab family.

The inspiration for the series came from an article Berg had read that said there were areas in Neukölln into which police officers would not venture alone.

“I really liked the set-up and the clans. I’ve lived in Berlin for a few years so I knew what was going on,” recalls Greifeneder, Turner’s director of original productions. “Then I said I’d like it to be a bit more radical and change the perspective by going into the clan and telling it from their perspective.

“It’s a parallel universe within society, and that’s what’s interesting. Quirin was really happy about it; they don’t very often hear suggestions to make it more radical – and that’s how the whole project started.”

Berg picks up: “There is some kind of news from Neukölln every week, every month, so it’s really something that is vibrant and has a certain momentum. The fact the police wouldn’t really go there was remarkable because it was far away from my perception of Germany as a safe place and a safe country.

4 Blocks aims to look beyond criminal gang members and into their families and personal lives

“We always wanted to tell the story from both sides, not just the police side, but there was more of that in the original concept. We really embraced Anke’s input, saying ‘Let’s be more radical.’ That’s what it’s all about.”

Because of the realities of life in Neukölln, the production team sought a story that had a balance between reality and fiction – a process that involved speaking to lots of people who actually live and work in the district.

“We spoke to officials, policemen, attorneys, lawyers and people living there,” Berg says. “It was all about treating people with respect and not judging them. We tried to really get a survey on what’s beneath the surface. For us it was not about the typical clichés of gangster life. It was more about the question of who are the people behind it, their family and their relationships.”

That’s why 4 Blocks is not just about action and organised crime, and uses the legacy of shows such as The Sopranos and Gomorrah by exploring the dynamics and relationships within the gang and what leads them to make the decisions that they make during the course of the series.

“It has some very emotional elements to it as well,” adds Hannes Heyelmann, Turner’s senior VP and managing director, central and eastern Europe and international original programming strategy. “That’s one of the big advantages when you tell the story from the inside versus the police angle. We’ve managed to show different perspectives and we’re not just fulfilling the stereotypes. This is what people on the street realised as well. When we hired some of the cast from the area and brought in lots of extras, word spread that this was not about shaping a certain image.”

Behind the scenes during production of 4 Blocks

Leading the project from a creative standpoint was director Kren, whose credits include crime drama Tatort. He has also been hired to helm forthcoming crime drama Freud, about the young psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud in 1886 Vienna.

“I immediately latched on to that idea [of dramatising life inside the clan] and felt that it was really interesting,” he says. “For me as an Austrian, to try and get a foothold in this world was very difficult, and thanks to Kida, who is from a Kurd-Arab background and knows quite a few people in the area, that was a door-opener, definitely.

“We’re trying to look at family and in this case it’s a Lebanese-Kurdish family. We know they exist in Germany. It’s very authentic and we can be very confident in our approach. Then of course there is this backdrop of Neukölln. The interesting thing is if you go to France, nobody knows there is a mafia in Germany, that there are mafia-like structures and mobsters in Germany. I talked to somebody and mentioned this, and they had no idea this existed. So it’s interesting to tell a story about Germany that is not too familiar outside of Germany either.”

Berg has previously worked with Kren and describes the director as “extremely passionate” about his work, noting that he spent many days and nights in Neukölln speaking to people there. “He’s one of the best directors we have [in Germany] right now,” he says. “We developed a large part of the series with Turner and our writers. Then we brought Marvin in and he changed the game in a very good way. He spent a lot of time with people that really contributed by telling him stories and sharing their lives with him. He soaked in this authenticity and found a way to put it in our project. It’s his style, his handwriting and the whole tone of the series is what he managed to put together in a great way.”

“He also brought the writers in; they had their office there for a couple of months,” reveals Greifeneder. “You’re always better when you know what you’re writing about and that’s something you could really feel. It’s something that’s not typically German. It’s a really unique look.”

For leading actor Ramadan, 4 Blocks was something of a homecoming, as until recently he had lived in Neukölln for 37 years.

“The danger of making a contemporary series about a criminal foreigner is that you shore up stereotypes and clichés, or that you actually stoke the flames of the whole [immigration] debate,” he says of the series. “But, of course, on the other hand there are criminal clans [in real life] and we’re trying to give them a face so you can look at it in a different way and understand why the situation came about. If you touch something that’s a hot topic, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re stoking the flames.”

Actor Kida Kodr Ramadan (left) has lived in the Neukölln area of Berlin most of his life

The location of the series, in the south-east of Berlin, also provides a distinctive look that will be unrecognisable even to those familiar with the streets of Germany’s capital.

“Berlin is a little bit like New York – it’s shot so many times you’ve seen all these places so many times,” Greifeneder admits. “But now I’ve seen Berlin in a new way. At the beginning, you almost feel like you’re in Istanbul, but then you realise it’s Berlin. Even the typical things you know, he made it so you see it with new eyes, and that’s really difficult.”

Berg says the production used a lot of original locations, which sometimes meant going into places where the crew might not have been entirely welcome: “We made sure we were talking to the right people and that they knew we respected them,” he notes. “They loved our work as filmmakers in general so they respected us. The funny thing was, after we wrapped principal photography, a policeman came up to us and said while we were shooting the whole area was really quiet and, one day after we stopped, it all went crazy again. It’s true – it could have gone so bad and it didn’t. We didn’t have any incidents or any problems at all.”

The third original series to air on TNT Serie, after comedy Add a Friend and mystery thriller Weinberg, 4 Blocks has already been renewed for a second season. Production is due to begin later this year and the season will air in 2018.

“When we look at a concept, we try not to play it safe but take risks,” Greifeneder says of Turner’s original drama strategy in Germany. “4 Blocks is not typically German but it’s also easier for us [to commission a show like that] because we don’t have ratings pressure. We’re pay TV, so we have another business model. Saying that, we still want to reach for both. We want to have something critically acclaimed and that also has fans.”

Berg adds: “We’re not trying to please the audience, we’re trying to follow a vision we believe in. Most of the time, I find that if you have a strong creative vision you don’t try to make everybody happy and you end up having something that is stronger at the end and will attract more people. That’s one of the strengths pay TV has to offer and we’re taking full advantage of that.”

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