Sonnenallee (4 Stars)

This is a coming-of-age comedy about a group of teenage boys in 1970's East Berlin. Think of it as a Communist block version of Porky's. The boys make inept attempts to pick up girls, hindered by the watchful eyes of the Stasi and over-zealous border guards. Their interests are in sex and drugs and rock'n'roll, but they don't have much access to any of them. After all, the newest Rolling Stones album costs three months' salary on the black market, hardly affordable for a 17-year-old boy. The drugs are home-made concoctions made up from a mixture of supermarket articles and fizzy lemonade, more likely to make you sick than high. And as for sex, the neighbourhood girls are pretty, but they have no interest in spotty young boys.