Before the Guest Lists

I came to Berlin in the summer of 2007. Everything was new and loud and different. Guest lists hadn’t yet colonized every night out—if someone invited you somewhere, you actually went, instead of spending the evening on the couch texting vague excuses and telling yourself you’d been noncommittal from the start. The former emos around Alexanderplatz were mid-transformation into life-worn hipsters, practically visible in the process of becoming something more cynical.

The clubs weren’t just clubs then. Bar 25. The Scala. Even the Knaack. They were lit-up fortresses where something imported from New York, London, and Amsterdam got celebrated on repeat. We weren’t as corroded as we’d later become—curious, hungry, ready for whatever was pulsing in the dark. I miss that version of the city. I miss the people I found in the middle of it.

After Hours, a web series shot around 2009, isn’t exactly cinema—but it captures something. The Berghain at a particular moment. The Watergate. Club der Visionäre. Watching it now triggers a nostalgia I’m almost embarrassed by, but there it is. The city I walk through every day looks familiar. The one in those clips looks like somewhere I could fall in love with all over again.