#8 After dark

‘You have to make your boundaries clear’

During the week Selma works at a nursery; at weekends she works the door of a club. On respect, safety and standing your ground as a woman in nightlife.

After dark

Pankower Tor: the toads missing from the building plan

Berlin wants to build 2,000 homes here – but strictly protected amphibians are holding up the major project. A case study.

After dark

‘Das Günther’: a band that invents its songs live

Three musicians, zero planning: how pure spontaneity creates something new every night.

Wearing oversized neon-green glasses, Alex, the voice of ‘Das Günther’, sits in front of us and looks into the camera.

After dark

Heimwegtelefon: how the walk-home phone line works

A voice in your ear that stays with you until the door clicks shut behind you – how volunteers help people get home safely.

After dark

Night owls: twelve portraits of life after sundown

From secret graffiti sprayers to late-night table tennis tournaments: twelve short videos about people who only come alive after dark.

After dark

Night-time in the village: shisha in the barn, joyrides through the middle of nowhere

Where nothing seems to happen in the evening, yet everything does: young people in a village in Lower Saxony after dark.

A young man and a young woman look into the camera, standing in front of a barn at night.

After dark

Learning to dream lucidly: awake in your own mind’s cinema

Steering your dreams consciously, without apps and without hype: what sleep research knows about lucid dreaming.

A cyanotype: a photograph of a person, in blue.

After dark

Sleeping better: sleep researcher Thomas Penzel’s rules

Good sleep starts long before bedtime. An expert explains what really matters for a restful night.

After dark

Narcolepsy: when sleep becomes an illness

Sudden attacks, hallucinations, leaden tiredness: student Livia Sommer looks for answers in a sleep lab.

Sommer sits in her hospital room. After her skin has been degreased, nurse Marie Drebing attaches the first two electrodes around her eyes so that her eye movements can be tracked. Warm light falls on her face.

After dark

Femicide: the crime scenes of deadly misogyny

Almost every day in Germany, a woman is killed because she is a woman. Photographer Selma von Hennigs documents the crime scenes in her home town of Regensburg.

After dark

Hannover’s night angel: help while the city sleeps

An interview about night-time rounds through the city, encounters on the margins – and help that gets through.

Portrait of Martina, the ‘night angel’, at a table in her flat. In the background is a large red cupboard and a pinboard with her personal photos.

When most people are asleep, the day begins for others. Our eighth focus topic explores the hours after dark.

Twelve portraits show people who live and work at night. The Night Angel of Hannover helps when nobody else is around. The Heimwegtelefon, a walk-home hotline, keeps company with anyone who feels unsafe on their way home alone.

Not every night is quiet. One story visits the crime scenes of femicides. Others are about sleep: how to fall asleep more easily, how to learn lucid dreaming – and what it is like to live with narcolepsy.

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