Pepe Danquart, who won an Academy Award in 1994 for his short film "Schwarzfahrer" (shown the US as both "Black Rider" and "Fare Dodger") showed his new film "Home Game" at the Berlinale. It's a sports film, but more, revealing the world of the East Berlin ice hockey club "Die Eisbären", the "Polar Bears, the club's fans, the players and the people who watch out for them.

"Home Game" works through a strand of the history of East Germany and shows what goes on in the hearts of the people in the eastern and western halves of Berlin ten years after German unification. There are deep clefts to be discovered, and for Danquart, that's the actual strength of his film: "We didn't want to unfurl the cloak of silence hovering over Germany's domestic problems but to expose them and get people to think about them," the 43-year-old filmmaker said after the premiere. "Home Game" aims to tear down prejudices.