Berlin electro composer Martin Karow, a.k.a. DJ Ickarus, is touring the world′s most with-it dance clubs with his girlfriend and manager Mathilde, hopping from one gig to the next. They share bed, music studio and office in their Berlin apartment. Mathilde is increasingly critical of Ickarus because of his excessive drug consumption, but their love and their mutual goal of bringing out a new album create a powerful bond between them. After one of his gigs, however, Ickarus loses control and ends up in the emergency drug ward of a Berlin psychiatric clinic.

Head physician Prof. Dr. Petra Paul diagnoses drug-induced mental confusion. Although he′s more freaked out than he wants to admit, he still doesn′t take his condition particularly seriously. In the clinic he continues to work with his computer on the pieces for his new album. Ickarus also begins to take part in the social life of the "open" drug ward, but at night he is plagued by panic-like flashbacks. That′s only the beginning of his problems: Alice, the head of the record label Vinyl Distortion, cancels the release of the new album, and club boss Tom postpones the record release party. Mathilde consoles herself with her ex-girlfriend Corinna. Ickarus sneaks out of the clinic and gets himself some more cocaine…

Writer/director Hannes Stöhr has cast the role of Ickarus with the internationally known DJ Paul Kalkbrenner in his first movie part. Stöhr: ′Berlin Calling′ "traces the life of a fictional musician in the Berlin of today, and is about art and insanity, intoxication and ecstasy, hope and future, friendship and family, music and the lust for life, and, of course, love."

Source: 59. Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin (Catalogue)