The Idea of a River

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The Panke River flows into Berlin from Bernau, a small town northeast of the city. Paul Scraton follows its course backwards, from the lively north Berlin district of Wedding, through a kaleidoscopic suburban terrain populated by downtrodden office workers, would-be kings and apparitional hospital patients. As he turns his back on the city and finds the world at its doorstep he writes a walking meditation on the peripheral spaces which flow ceaselessly back to the centre.