Sun and Concrete: Four friends make their way daily between school stress, gang violence, drugs and boredom – until an opportunity beckons that could change everything.
Plot and background
For the teenage friends Lukas (Levy Rico Arcos), Gino (Rafael Luis Klein-Heßling), Julius (Vincent Wiemer) and Sanchez (Aaron Maldonado-Morales), everyday life in dreary Berlin Neukölln always looks the same: During the day, they shimmy their way through school lessons more or less poorly; afterwards, they fight boredom, look for distraction on the game console, smoke pot and try to impress girls. They try to stay out of gang rivalries and drug deals until one fateful day in the summer when they get caught in the middle.
From now on, Lukas is supposed to pay 500 euros in protection money. And Sanchez already has an idea how: The school has just received brand new computers, so they break in, clear out the warehouse and sell the computers on. A sure thing, then, isn’t it?
“Sun and concrete” – backgrounds
The coming-of-age drama “Sun and Concrete” is based on the novel of the same name by comedian and “Mixed Hack” podcaster Felix Lobrecht. Writer-director David Wnendt (“Er ist wieder da”) is responsible for the direction, who also wrote the screenplay in close collaboration with Lobrecht. Just as uncompromisingly, sensitively and sometimes with brute force – just like in the novel – they bring the fate of four youths in a social hotspot, namely the high-rise canyons of Neukölln, to the big screen.
Authentic amateur actors were sought for the young leads in the film adaptation, who beat out numerous applicants from all over Germany and are now celebrating their big screen debut with “Sun and Concrete”. The soundtrack to the film is all the more famous for this, featuring German hip-hop greats such as Olexesh, Juju, Lucio101, Azzi Memo, Luvre47 and others.
“Sun and Concrete” will celebrate its world premiere as part of the Berlinale 2023. The socio-critical drama will then be released in cinemas nationwide from 2 March 2023. The FSK has released the film from the age of 12.
