Prinz in Hölleland I Prince in Hell

Jockel and Stefan are a gay couple living in a trailer in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district. Jockel engages in anonymous sex on the side, which does not make Stefan happy, even less so since Jockel has also started shooting up heroin. Worried about his lover, Stefan tries to break his addiction, but Jockel isn’t having it. To rustle up the money for his dealer, he starts an intense relationship with their neighbour in the trailer park, Micha.
Prince in Hell tells the story of this fatal gay triangle against the backdrop of the drug and squatter scene around the notorious metro station at Kottbusser Tor. Shot on location on vacant lots and places like the now-legendary bar Café Anal, the film also documents the free-ranging habits and lifestyle of the queer off-the-grid milieu. It is a graphic and sometimes extreme portrayal of its denizens – leathermen and anarchists, punks and trannies – as well as the threat they face from right-wing skinheads. The title is an homage to a puppet show by a local jester, but the film breaks with the plot of a prince who loves a miller’s son and this debut film by Michael Stock, just 25 when he made it, does not have a fairy-tale ending.