Berlin is Damiri's second city after London. It appears across five episodes as a place of relocation, artistic production, and psychological reckoning for Libyans in exile.
Osama Alfitory (EP 10) was based in Berlin at the time of recording. He had moved there after years as a fixer and documentary filmmaker across Libya, Jordan, and Turkey. Berlin was where he transitioned from enabling others' stories to building his own life — married, expecting his first child, and recalibrating his relationship to risk after years of conflict work.
Tewa Barnosa (EP 20) arrived in Berlin on a relocated artist visa — a programme designed for artists who cannot safely remain in their home countries. She did not romanticise the city. She described it as a functional base from which to continue her work with Waraq Art Foundation, centering Libyan and North African art outside institutional gatekeeping.
Ahmed Elbokhari (EP 12) studied in Germany as part of his broader trajectory through Egypt, prison, and the Libyan intellectual underground. Abdelwahab Elalem (EP 13) pursued a master's in Neurobiology there while continuing his writing and cultural activism with Harakat Tanweer.
Fatma Ahmed Sherif (EP 11) hit rock bottom in Germany. After her father's death and the upheaval of leaving Libya, she gained weight to 99 kilograms, slept eighteen hours a day, and stood on a sixth-floor balcony considering jumping. A roommate intervened. Germany's isolation compounded the grief and cultural displacement into something nearly fatal.
Berlin — and Germany more broadly — functions differently from London in the Damiri universe. London is where Libyans process their past among a large diaspora community. Berlin is where they arrive alone, often on institutional pathways (university, artist visa), and confront themselves without the cushion of community. The city offers infrastructure but not warmth.