HAPE KERKELING – TOTAL NORMAL

To mark the 60th birthday of the multi-talented satirist, musician and author Hape Kerkeling, the two German documentary heavyweights André Schäfer and Eric Friedler have created a quiet and thoughtful portrait of this often anarchic clown. His rapid rise as a teenager is covered, as are the brutal private shocks of the AIDS epidemic and the infamous forced outing – right up to his confident exit from show business at the height of his fame. A look back at the career stages of a cultural icon and a formative figure in German TV history.