''Oi! Warning'' is a 2000

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

movie about a 17-year-old boy who runs away from home to become an Oi! skinhead. The movie was the directorial debut of twin brothers Benjamin and Dominik Reding. It took them about five years to film, mostly due to financial constraints. It was shot in stark

black-and-white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white to produce a range of achromatic brightnesses of grey. It is also known as greyscale in technical settings. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, ...

, underscoring the film's gritty feel. Among other recognitions, the film has won the German Camera Award, and a L.A. Outfest ''emerging talent'' award.

Plot summary

Janosch has problems at school and despises the lifestyle of his

bourgeois The bourgeoisie ( , ) are a class of business owners, merchants and wealthy people, in general, which emerged in the Late Middle Ages, originally as a "middle class" between the peasantry and Aristocracy (class), aristocracy. They are tradition ...

mother. He runs away from home, to his friend Koma, who he had met at a holiday camp. Koma is an

Oi! Oi! is a subgenre of punk rock that originated in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s. The music and its associated subculture had the goal of bringing together punks, skinheads, and other disaffected working-class youth. The movement wa ...

skinhead A skinhead or skin is a member of a subculture that originated among working-class youth in London, England, in the 1960s. It soon spread to other parts of the United Kingdom, with a second working-class skinhead movement emerging worldwide i ...

(also known as a punk-skinhead). He is a particular sort of skinhead who has little political motivations, preferring a lifestyle of partying and

binge drinking Binge drinking, or heavy episodic drinking, is drinking alcoholic beverages with an intention of becoming intoxicated by heavy consumption of alcohol over a short period of time, but definitions vary considerably. Binge drinking is a style of ...

, and whose musical tastes are a synthesis of skinhead and

punk rock Punk rock (also known as simply punk) is a rock music genre that emerged in the mid-1970s. Rooted in 1950s rock and roll and 1960s garage rock, punk bands rejected the corporate nature of mainstream 1970s rock music. They typically produced sh ...

music. Koma's girlfriend is pregnant, and wants him to change his ways. She blows up his secret hideaway with

dynamite Dynamite is an explosive made of nitroglycerin, sorbents (such as powdered shells or clay), and Stabilizer (chemistry), stabilizers. It was invented by the Swedish people, Swedish chemist and engineer Alfred Nobel in Geesthacht, Northern German ...

, but this only infuriates Koma, who blames this on the

punks Punk or punks may refer to: Genres, subculture, and related aspects * Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres * Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...

he had gotten into a fight with previously. Meanwhile, Janosch meets Zottel, a punk who earns a living with small

circus A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicy ...

acts at wealthy people's parties. The two fall in love, but their happiness is cut short when Koma attacks Zottel and kills him. In a fit of fury, Janosch grabs a brick and slays Koma.

Cast list

* Sascha Backhaus as Janosch. Backhaus portrays the main protagonist Janosch, who escapes his pampered bourgeois lifestyle to become an Oi-skinhead, but later questions the ultra-masculine, testosterone-fueled subculture. Backhaus himself was a real-life squatter.Official website - The Actors
/ref> * Sascha Goerts as Koma. Goerts plays the tough Koma, a hard drinking, kickboxing and often violent Oi-skinhead, who takes Janosch under his wing. Like Backhaus, Goerts was a squatter, and also an occasional street musician. According to the DVD commentary, he gave such a convincing performance that people were shocked when they found out that Goerts is in fact a soft-spoken, intelligent person. *

Sandra Borgmann Sandra Borgmann (born 1974) is a German actress. Biography Borgmann is originally from Mülheim and studied German, philosophy, and history. She attended the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen and joined a theater troupe. She has worked a ...

as Sandra. Borgmann portrays Sandra, Komas skin-girl girlfriend. She later becomes the mother of his twins and grows fed up of his Oi-behaviour. In contrast to Backhaus and Goerts, Borgmann was already an established actress. * Jens Veith as Zottel. A punk with whom Janosch later has an affair. Veith is a real-life fire-eater and juggler and was one of the last actors cast for the movie.

Development

When they started the project, the Reding brothers wanted to authentically portray youths from fringe subcultures like "skinheads (non-political Oi!skins), squatters, modern-primitives and tribes ... who all just do what they like ... Their own way of fun, fights, sorrows and desires. What we didn't want to do was: showing stereotypes of youth-culture, like the drug-abusing "problemchild" or the sexually overpowered "teenager" we all know so well from television."Official website - About the film
/ref> According to them, they then drew a 600-picture storyboard and started choosing actors. When casting the movie, the Reding brothers looked for people who were "absolutely, 100% believable on the big screen ... This is the reason why the actresses and actors in OI!WARNING are a good mixture of non-professionals and professionals": male leads Sascha Backhaus and Simon Goerts were non-professionals, whilst female lead Sandra Borgmann was an established actress when the project started. A problem was money, because the ''Oi! Warning'' production was very low budget. It took over five years to complete, because the Reding brothers frequently had to stop filming until they had earned enough money to continue.''Oi! Warning'' DVD commentaryOfficial website - QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
/ref> In the film, there is a concert in which the fictional Oi-group ''Roimkommando'' (the real life punk band ''Smegma'') holds a concert, to which Oi-skins led by Koma (Goerts) violently mosh to. On the DVD commentary track, the Redings explain that they could not use the sexually charged word ''

Smegma Smegma (from Ancient Greek ) is shed skin cells, skin oils, and moisture that occurs in male and female mammalian genitalia. In males, smegma collects under the foreskin; in females, it collects around the clitoris and in the folds of the lab ...

'' in a film which was meant to be seen by teenagers, so they had to change the name of the band. In addition, all the Oi skinhead extras were real Oi skinheads, who demanded beer as compensation when they slowly grew weary of filming. In addition, they moshed so hard that Goerts was often knocked out of the middle and the scene had to be reshot.

Awards

''Oi! Warning'' won following prizes:Official website - Awards
/ref> *Out-Filmfest, Los Angeles: Outstanding Emerging Talent-Award of the Directors Guild of America 1999 *World Filmfestival, Montréal: Air Canada People Award 1999 *International Filmfestival, Leeds: Audience-Award 1999 *Max Ophüls Filmfestival, Saarbrücken: Film-Award of the Governour of the Saarland 1999 *Film Kunst Fest, Schwerin: NDR Young Talent Award 1999 *International Festival du premiere Film, Annonay (France ): Prix Spécial du Jury 2000

Footnotes

External links

Oi! Warning
English language version of official site *{{IMDb title, 0183076, Oi! Warning

Review of Oi! Warning 2000 films 1990s German-language films German LGBTQ-related films Street punk Punk films Skinhead films 1990s gang films 2000 directorial debut films 1990s German films 2000s German films 2000 LGBTQ-related films