Beginning of autumn in the cinema seat: By the way, Lance Oppenheim is from Florida

The jump into the German autumn had come rather abruptly. A few days ago I was researching a story under the palm trees of Florida. Drank a cool Modelo beer at a tropical temperature of 30 degrees Celsius and skillfully ignored the fact that the bad, dark months had long since begun in Berlin. That you don't celebrate Halloween in flip-flops, shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, but in a winter jacket.

“Let’s go outside for a bit,” you try to snap me out of my self-pity, and I look at the dull, gray sky outside. The tree in front of the window has almost no leaves left and it looks very cold and dark. Between jet lag, the new climate zone and the time change, I have had the feeling in the last few days that I have completely lost track of space and time. It could be anywhere between 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., I would accept anything. “All right,” I say and go get my jacket.

To really prepare us for the next few months and to really arrive in Berlin again, you picked out a “Vintage and Heritage Market”. This actually takes place in the Ballhaus on Chausseestrasse, a dance hall that is steeped in Berlin history. After all, people were already dancing here in the 1920s, when the world situation seemed as fragile as it is today. I imagine the whole thing a bit like a Zille drawing, and there are actually some of them hanging on the wall here.

It smells like waffles and cinnamon and, yes, Christmas. And Swing is actually running in the background. The salesman from whom I buy an Ol’ Rockin’ Bordsteinkloppers record is already talking about Christmas presents. And the main items sold here are thick fur coats and dresses in a dark green, red, checkered autumn look. At least it's warm, the music is good, and the people are friendly. And: next door in the Alt-Berlin beer parlor there is beer and it is just as Zille-like as the name suggests. I would actually have liked a hot coffee, but beer warms you up too. Not as much as the sun over Miami Beach, but still.

“How about a movie?” I say. “That would be just right for such a cold Sunday evening.” “Cold?” you laugh and try to explain to me that it will get significantly colder. “Now the temperature is still in double digits,” you say, but I don’t even listen. We decide to go to “Primetime,” the feature film debut of Lance Oppenheim, yes, the same one who made “You can see anything.” Unfortunately it's not showing in German cinemas yet. “By the way, Lance Oppenheim is from Florida,” I read out loud, you just look at me irritated.

We both like the film; Robert Pattinson plays the journalist Chris Hansen, who in the reality series “To Catch a Predator” in the noughties exposed men who made contact with supposedly minors on the Internet and publicly pilloried them. In the film - which is probably only loosely based on true events - he develops an obsession with using decoys to catch such men in order to get a primetime slot with his show. And leaves the viewer thinking: How far can one go for a good story, for success, for a career? What is TV allowed? And has anything changed in this regard in the USA in the last few decades. I'm afraid not.

“Maybe it’s good to be back in Europe after all,” I say to you as I button my jacket and we walk through the cold air to the subway.