BBC confirms David Bowie in Berlin ‘dream project’ to mark fifty years since Berlin trilogy

A documentary has been commissioned by the BBC on David Bowie‘s years living in Berlin.

Bowie in Berlin will be broadcast in Autumn 2026, with established Bowie documentarian Francis Whately in the directing chair. Their previous work on Bowie includes David Bowie: The Last Five Years and David Bowie: Finding Fame. Louis Theroux and Mandy Chang are attached to the Mindhouse / Blackstar Films co-production as executive producers. The documentary will detail the story of Bowie turning his back on fame and disappearing into the streets of Cold War Berlin between 1976 and 1978. Bowie’s story is told in his own words, as well as his Berlin muses – Clare Shenstone, Romy Haag, Sarah-Rena Hine, and Sydne Rome – who were interviewed for the documentary. Documentary filmmaker Theroux, who serves as one of two executive producers for Bowie in Berlin, has called it a “dream project”.

He said: “This is a dream project. Francis’s three previous Bowie films are the gold standard for Bowie film-making and indeed for docs about music in general. To have his artistry focused on the Berlin years – using the lens of the women in Bowie’s life – is a perfect match of director and material.

“There’s a wonderful unity of time and place to Bowie’s period in Berlin. He hit bottom, but he also found himself making some of his most personal music, then relaunched himself for the first time without a mask, as himself. So, Berlin is the crucible for his incredible regeneration and everything that came afterwards.”

Jonathan Rothery, Head of BBC Popular Music TV, added: “I’m very proud to be bringing audiences such a unique film from Francis Whately, Louis Theroux and Mandy Chang. Through the voices of those who were closest to David Bowie during this transformative period of his life, and through the words of the man himself, Bowie in Berlin will shed new light on one of the most important artists in musical history.”

It comes as the BBC unearthed archival interviews with Bowie which had never been released. In one such interview, featured as part of the David Bowie: Changeling podcast series, Bowie claimed he was “driven by lust” during his most successful period.

He said: “I think that throughout the 60s and most of the 70s I was driven by lust, as much as anything. It’s a great creative force.

“That in turn is replaced by anger, when you ask where the money is. And then you get depression, and then you go to Berlin and write really moody instrumental stuff. It’s the triptych of the 70s. Lust, anger, moody.”

That difference of emotional topics which formed his very best albums has since been commented on by a variety of famous guests. Tilda Swinton, who worked with Bowie on a music video for The Stars (Are Out Tonight), suggested the “flexibility” and “curiosity” Bowie had as an artist was a massive influence on culture.

She said: “I think that what Bowie contributed and contributes still – and presumably always will contribute to the culture – is a model of flexibility, curiosity. He was a portal to the idea of a kind of properly engaged and up for it relationship with himself and with the development of his work.