Yes, Berlin really is a place where you can find, on any given weekend, a club that will keep you on your feet from midnight to 3pm the following day. Just as easily, you can find an all-day sauna on the way home to sweat out the toxins you will likely have ingested in a toilet cubicle earlier that morning.
Just as easily, however, there is much to find in Berlin that will keep you engaged without a single grain of white powder or a drop of alcohol. Indeed, there are pockets of the queer community in Berlin that pointedly enforce a sobriety clause, given that so much LGBTQ+ networking revolves around clubbing or bar-hopping.
Certainly, there is a heady dose of FOMO that hits when you move to Berlin. Most people who decide to live here have already tasted the sweet nectar of the city’s nightlife and imagine, therefore, that its supply will be regularly available and remain just as intensely delicious.
This is the first major learning: there is a core difference between visiting Berlin and living here. The parties and clubs will come, yes, but they will just need to be a once-in-a-while occurrence. You really can’t hit up four different venues in an MDMA-fuelled weekend when you’re back at work on Monday and have German language classes twice a week.
In the interim, there is a lot here to keep you occupied that doesn’t rely on strobe lights and hardcore techno.
Berlinale International Film Festival
At the snow-scattered tail end of every winter, the Berlinale film festival lights up the city’s cultural scene with a two-week blitz of film premieres, director Q&A’s and frenzied industry networking. The grey, icy months at the start of a new year bring a flurry of activity to the city, which in turn beckons a short burst of work opportunity for up-and-comers.
I was lucky enough to benefit from this, securing an internship under the Berlinale’s queer film prize, the TEDDY AWARD, which this year celebrated its landmark 40th anniversary. The internship granted me official Berlinale accreditation, allowing me to attend any of the festival’s film screenings and discussion panels. Admittedly, I was quite busy across some weird working hours, as befits interning in a major film festival, so my free time was pretty scarce.
One event I did manage to attend was a networking opportunity hosted by Screen Australia at the Australian Embassy, celebrating two of the Australian titles presented in competition at this year’s festival. It was also a chance to engage with the substantial global outreach of the Aussie film community, where many of the country’s creatives and production talents had all assembled in one place at the same time.
Of the many smaller film festivals that take place across Berlin throughout the year, the Down Under Film Festival was particularly well-represented and I met at least three core members of its administration and production team. Platforming the best in Aussie film across two separate regions, in Copenhagen and Berlin, Down Under is a strong demonstration of the sizeable expat footprint of Aussie creatives in Europe and the German capital in particular.
Global culture and spring horizons
As is the case with many cities in the northern hemisphere, the emergence from winter is a seismic period of change and hope for many who have suffered dark, biting days of white skies and black ice.
Indeed, as I write this now, I am sitting at my desk with the windows fully open while the bright, happy chirrups of bird chatter echo the lively chatter of my laptop keyboard. The first optimistic days of blue sky and double-digit temperatures enact a fantastic influence of positive change in places that suffer especially miserable winters.
The first day of March, for instance, brought in a 19-degree weekend and three days of sunshine lasting until 6pm. The sudden rush of outdoor activity – packs of trendy youths downing beer and smoking rollies on the street, local parks bustling with dog-walkers and rocket-fuelled children, chardonnay mums chatting excitedly on café patios – is immensely nourishing after multiple months of early sunsets and overnight snow flurries.
Berlin is absolutely festooned with green spaces and tree-cluttered parks and the instant the sun comes out, so do the city’s free-wheeling, pleasure-seeking citizens. Any space, at any time, in the warm mid-year months can become an outdoor party, as you will never be any more than 20-feet away from a portable speaker or the sweet waft of marijuana.
While the change in season allows for many happy afternoons in the park, watching shirtless volleyball players thrash at one another in the sand or greeting free-range dogs patrolling newly blossoming grasslands, there is no end to indoor activity, either. At all times of year, there are shows, indie gallery openings and concerts taking place within every corner of the city.
These are particularly helpful when the grip of winter remains sufficiently unpleasant to keep us all indoors for much of the weekend. A couple of good recent examples include a retrospective exhibition of works by filmmaker David Lynch and a gender-diverse, alcohol-free life drawing class.
A year after his death in January 2025, Pace Gallery in the city’s queer Nollendorfplatz presented a collection of the late filmmaker’s experimental sculptures and mixed-media artworks, including some of his black-and-white photos of abandoned Berlin factories in the late-90s. All very Lynch and all totally free.
Meanwhile, just a 15-minute walk from my house, I discovered Queer & Pose, a gender-diverse life drawing class that is pointedly alcohol-free. The event administrator has deliberately challenged the difficulties of socialising in queer circles without the need to drink or party, especially in relation to the high instances of drug addiction that often befall these activities.
Regardless of gender, ability or sobriety, these biweekly classes are a great way to mix and meet people without having to shout over floor-shaking techno or burn through your weekly wage packet at pricey bars.
Of course, we’re only just at the dawn of spring now so the city is really just beginning to open up. There will be plenty more open-air raves, hungover Saturday afternoons asleep under a tree and perhaps the occasional trip to a clothing-optional FKK lake.
The snow and ice have truly melted away for the final time and Berlin, it seems, is on the brink of blossoming.
