An African immigrant struggles to make a new life for himself in the big city in director/co-writer Burhan Qurbani's audacious, neon-lit reinterpretation of Alfred Döblin's 1929 novel (famously adapted by Reiner Werner Fassbinder in 1980). After surviving his perilous journey, Francis vows to be a good man, but he soon realizes how difficult it is to be righteous while undocumented in Germany without papers, without nationality, and without a work...

"In 1892, a group of mostly black infantrymen, betrayed by their white commander, Colonel Graham, desert the Spanish-American War. With Graham hot on their trail, Jessie Lee leads the men to his hometown, Freemanville, only to find it has also been besieged by a war -- a racist war. Lee's attempts to bring justice and freedom to his people make for a brilliant Western that's short on words and long on entertainment"--Container.

After spending four years in prison for killing his girlfriend, lumbering man-child Franz Biberkopf is finally released back into society. He wants to stay honest now he has left jail, but it is tough in the Alexanderplatz section of Berlin. After failing to succeed in several 'regular' jobs, he falls in with some old cohorts and an on-again, off-again association with thugs. Post-war society is crumbling, and it appears that nothing will bring it...