Babylon Berlin sets stage for final season

FIRST LOOK: Volker Bruch and Liv Lisa Fries take the lead in the fifth and final season of German period drama Babylon Berlin, which has now completed filming and is heading into post-production.

Among the last scenes shot in November was the iconic 1933 press ball, the last big social event in Berlin before the Nazis took power, which included hundreds of extras in full period dress.

Set during the German Weimar Republic, spanning from Berlin’s roaring 1920s to the dawn of the Third Reich, Babylon Berlin has developed a distinctive blend of character-driven storytelling, outstanding production value and 1920s style and music since it first debuted in 2017.

Now against the backdrop of Adolf Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor, S5 focuses once again focuses on Berlin police detective duo Gereon Rath (Bruch) and Charlotte Ritter (Fries). While Gereon disappears without explanation, Charlotte investigates a series of murders targeting former front-line soldiers, a case that gradually links back to Gereon’s past and to the country’s new political leadership.

S5 once again comes from director/writer trio Tom Tykwer, Henk Handloegten and Achim von Borries.

The cast also includes Peter Kurth, Matthias Brandt, Hannah Herzsprung, Karl Markovics, Lars Eidinger, Fritzi Haberlandt and Christian Friedel, including cameo appearances from figures including musician Bryan Ferry.

Based on the novels by Volker Kutscher, Babylon Berlin is produced by X-Filme Creative Pool in coproduction with ARD Degeto, SWR, WDR, Radio Bremen and Beta Film in collaboration with RBB, funded by Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, as well as the German Motion Picture Fund.

It is coproduced by Christoph Pellander and Carolin Haasis (ARD Degeto), Manfred Hattendorf and Monika Denisch (SWR), as well as Alexander Bickel and Caren Toennissen-Brand (WDR). Executive producers for X-Filme are Stefan Arndt, Uwe Schott, and Michael Polle, coproducers for Beta Film are Jan Mojto, Dirk Schürhoff, and Moritz Herzogenberg.

Beta Film is the distributor and has sold the series into more than 140 territories worldwide.

tagged in: Babylon Berlin, Beta Film, Liv Lisa Fries, Volker Bruch, X Filme Creative Pool