Los Angeles Times

Blood, sex and '80s art: Director Hari Sama on making 'This Is Not Berlin'

It is 1986 in Mexico City. A year after an 8.0 magnitude earthquake has reduced parts of the city to rubble. The longtime ruling party, the Partido Revolucionario Institucional, still clings to power. In the decade before Mexico would open itself to the world, it is a moment of stifling isolation.

In the midst of this, a disaffected 17-year-old named Carlos is discovering new worlds in an underground art and music scene where suffocating societal mores do not apply.

This is the world of director Hari Sama's new feature film, "This Is Not Berlin," which premiered Friday in Los Angeles. The story is loosely inspired by the director's youth, when he found solace from family troubles in New Wave music and the dance floor of a

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