Straight is the story of a messy love triangle between two men and a woman. Nazim (Eralp Uzun) is a hot young Turkish guy involved in petty crime. He goes out each night with his buddies, cruising for girls and dealing drugs in a seedy city square populated with hookers. None of his buddies suspect that on many of those nights he ends up in the arms of men. Since he met David (Florian Sonnefeld) on the street, his hetero façade is rapidly crumbling. His friends seem to pick up on the new vibe and wonder what’s up. David is from a bourgeois Jewish family and slumming it. He hangs out on the street pretending to look for drugs, but what he really wants is Nazim. Their first hookup is alternately hot, tender and filled with guilt. Nevertheless, their affair develops in secret against all odds. Further entangling things is David’s Polish-German girlfriend (Beba Ebner), who is revolting against her strict Catholic upbringing by going out with this punkish Jewish boyfriend.
Acting
Eralp Uzun's simmering panic as Nazim's double life unravels.
Cinematography
Grimy nocturnal Berlin that feels like a trap closing.
Direction
Flessa crams a feature's worth of tension into 59 minutes.
Director
Nicolas Flessa
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The film's Turkish-German-Jewish-Polish-Catholic collision mirrors real Berlin Kreuzberg demographics of the 2000s.
That seedy square? It's Görlitzer Park, still notorious today—Flessa shot guerrilla-style without permits.
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