After reunification, a young photographer from East Berlin enjoys his new-found freedom. But soon he feels constrained by the new order in which financial success is the only measure of success. Paralyzed as an artist, he watches as his hometown transforms into an international metropolis.

Adopting the photographic and doubtful gaze of one ex-East Berliner, Helga Reidemeister zeroes in on the realities of 1990s Berlin. Digging into questions of migration, labor, and community that popular media glossed over, the granular detail of this intimate documentary glints in a new restoration.