THE PYRAMIDS OF TREPTOW PARK

The Lost "World Exhibition"

rbb-series: "Mysterious Places"

Author & Director:

Daniel Ast | Juergen Ast | Nicole Standtke

Commissioning Editor:

Jens Stubenrauch

Duration:

45'

Production:

astfilm productions | for RBB

Treptow Park in the southeast of Berlin. No traces can be found of the so called "Berlin Trade Exhibition". A gigantic kaleidoscope of industry, technology, culture, science and entertainment, a gigantic show, a "once-in-a-hundred-years event". Over seven million people visited the public park in the summer of 1896. Hundreds of new buildings and in the center a spectacular exhibition hall. All could have been gazed at: African villages, a staged sea-battle and even the Egyptian pyramids. All that is left today, is the giant telescope of the Archenhold observatory, the only trace of the lost and mysterious world in the Treptow Park.

At the site where more than a hundred years ago gondolas took visitors for a ride over the artificial lake, since 1949 stands the Soviet Memorial of Honor for the soldiers of the Red Army, build from the rubbles of Hitler's Reich Chancellery. The bronze statue of the Soviet soldier with the German child in his arms - the world-wide known symbol of liberation - only a myth, covering up mysterious stories.

The film is the search of a lost place, which many people suppose to know. Today a park with beautiful meadows and old trees, that don't disclose the lost secrets anymore. It's like a puzzle, only piece by piece, little by little the secrets are revealed and the true story of the Treptow Park is told. An astonishing and fascinating search for clues.