"A dizzying, explosive tradition unfolds across decades of New Year’s in Berlin. From booze-soaked streets to the outer reaches of cosmos, this short documentary ricochets through time with the unpredictability of a misfiring firework.

A baby is born, eight years later he holds a firework for too long. People dance, kiss and vomit on the streets. Dogs tremble in bathroom corners. A planet fades into oblivion. But how much longer can this once-chaotic city of fun and freedom keep the fire going?"

Between the last hour of 2019 and the first of 2020, I found myself trapped in a storm of fire and explosions on Sonnenallee in Neukölln. It was my first New Year’s Eve in Berlin, and I had a full-blown panic attack – easily the worst NYE of my adult life. I normally hate New Year’s Eve anyway.

The next day, I decided to try to make sense of the chaos. That impulse turned into a four-year journey, and eventually, this 20 minute documentary.

Along the way, I met a man who lost fingers to fireworks as a child. He wouldn’t show his face, but he shared his story – about the father who sold him the very fireworks he held too long, and about his ongoing search for meaning in it all. Somehow, that search led us to a black hole: the biggest firework imaginable, only in reverse.