Cowboys & Communists

Centering on hip Berlin bar and burlesque joint White Trash Fast Food, this 64 minute documentary explores life in East Berlin after the wall — a place where libertines and die-hard communists co-exist, not always harmoniously. The cowboy of the title is Wally Potts, who escaped from Los Angeles and launched an Americana bar in Berlin. The Communist is Horst Woitalla, an ex-journalist who lives upstairs. Horst mourns the end of the old regime, and yearns for a decent sleep. Kiwi director Jess Feast did 18 months at White Trash as a waitress. The film won her an award at Germany's Kassel Documentary Film and Video Festival.

...the Germans really got it. It screened in a couple of film festivals in Germany and won an award there, and it screened on ARD, a German channel, which to me was a success as I was able to come a foreign country and tell a story about their culture that they could respond to. It’s quite good being an outsider in those situations because you’re allowed to go in there and ask dumb questions, and especially in a situation like that where you’ve got an East/West thing, and you’re not coming from one side or the other...

– Director Jess Feast in a Lumière Reader interview, 14 September 2013

Key Cast & Crew

Phil Burton

Sound Mix

Dave Gibson

Producer

Bernadette Paassen

Camera

Paul Sutorius

Editor

Lala Rolls

Editor

Jess Feast

Director, Editor, Producer, Research, Additional Camera Operator, Additional Sound Recordist