With romantic dreams of urban gay bliss, 22-year-old Moritz (Lorenz Hochhuth) moves to Berlin to live with his photographer boyfriend, Jonas (Gustav Schmidt), only to find his life upended when Jonas loses interest and asks him to leave. Alone in a new city with little more than a clarinet to his name, Moritz is pushed to reimagine life as a single gay man in the hedonistic queer party capital of Europe.
Trading his nerdy (but cute) smalltown appearance for a genderfluid update to the classic punk aesthetic, Moritz reintroduces himself to the city’s multicultural community in DIY art galleries and sweaty all-night techno warehouses. Moritz’s navigation of self and search for connection has become a rite of passage in recent years for young queers arriving in Berlin. But DRIFTER is hardly the cautionary tale of innocence lost we’ve seen before. For the film and its protagonist, looks can be deceiving
—Joe Bowman
