- Few recording studios in the world can claim to have hosted the simply incredible list of musicians that found their way into Berlin's Hansa Studios, standing virtually alone in the wasteland, metres from the Berlin Wall.
- Few recording studios in the world can claim to have hosted the simply incredible list of musicians that found their way into Berlin's Hansa Studios, producing classic after classic and none offered the unique environment this studio complex, standing virtually alone in the wasteland of West Berlin's Potsdamer Platz, metres from the Berlin Wall. It was a studio at the very edge of the western world. Here David Bowie immortalised the same wall in "Heroes", while his flatmate Iggy Pop found a Lust For Life and was inspired to write The Passenger riding the city's U Bahn and S Bahn. Countless notable, international artists followed including Depeche Mode, Nick Cave, Marillion and U2 - whose Achtung Baby sessions were the final chapter in the studio's incredible 20th century life.
With unprecedented access to the artists, engineers and producers, as well as the studios and its evocative archive, the film tells the story of how the studio, previously famous for being only a domestic German pop hit factory, came to define the sound for a generation of musicians. The 'island' of West Berlin, its culture and the exceptional political situation, as it found itself on the knife's edge of the Cold War, are contextualised by the artists - domestic and international - who worked at Hansa. Some of the studios greatest musical moments, the creative processes and experimentation are all laid bare in a unique portrait into recording, technology and musical artistry.
When the Wall fell, it was inevitable that a studio defined by its very proximity to it, at the heart of a city destined to change an incredible pace, would lose its purpose and individuality - but the poignant shut down of the studio in the early nineteen-nineties would not be forever. Nearly two decades later, Hansa enjoyed a surprising revival, which the film conveys through the memories of a new generation of musicians including Michael Stipe of REM and Supergrass, building to an affirming musical finale: one of the original musicians from those legendary Bowie/Pop sessions in the 70s returns to re-create a classic with the band whose return to Hansa had begun the studio's re-birth...
HANSA STUDIOS: BY THE WALL 1976-90, a film by Mike Christie, starring REM's Michael Stipe, Depeche Mode's Martin Gore, Einstürzende Neubauten's Alexander Hacke, Iggy Pop/Bowie bassist Tony Fox Sales, Supergrass' Gaz Coombes and Danny Goffey, Tangerine Dream's Klaus Kruger and Johannes Schmöelling, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds members Mick Harvey, Thomas Wydler and Barry Adamson, Marillion's Fish and Steve Rothery, Wire's Colin Newman and Graham Lewis, plus producers Tony Visconti, Flood, Eduard Meyer, Chris Kimsey, Daniel Miller, Gareth Jones, Michael Ilbert, Michael Zimmerling and Rainer Maillard, Dave Rimmer, Thilo Schmied, Romy Haag, Gudrun Gut, and Alex Wende and featuring U2.
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By what name was Hansa Studios: By the Wall 1976-90 (2018) officially released in Canada in English?
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