Blue Skin

Herbert Hoffmann is an enterpreneur, living in the Swiss mountains. Karlmann Richter is the scion of one of Northern Germany’s wealthiest families. And Albert Cornelissen is a sailor. These three gentlemen are around ninety years of age, and they have been friends for a long time. They are friendly, polite and well-to-do – and their bodies are covered with tattoos. Herbert, Karlmann and Albert hail from a time when tattoos were stigmas – the bearer was considered a criminal, an outcast from society at least. Nevertheless, they pursued their passion for embellishing their skin with blue ink. All three lived a life outside of convention. In 1961 Herbert opened up Germany’s very first official tattoo parlour. Karlmann left his bourgeois environment and his marriage and committed to life as an open homosexual; Albert took his family on tour of the country in his tattoo-mobile. In Blue Skin they tell the story of how they became friends and why their friendship has broken up. The film is a loveable, sometimes tragic, sometimes very funny account of one the world’s most beautiful addictions: tattooing. (DOK.fest München)