Hamburg, Germany

19 June 2021

Hamburg, Germany

In the film BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM, both Jesminder 'Jess' Kaur Bhamra (Parminder Nagra) and Juliette 'Jules' Paxton (Keira Knightley) both join a women's soccer team. They play for the Hounslow Harriers, Joe (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is their coach.

Bend it like Beckham, 0:13:46

The story is largely set in London. Filming began on 18 June 2001 and lasted nine weeks, on location as well as in the Shepperton Studios. The last three days of filming took place in Hamburg, where the team plays a match against a German team. Maybe the German city was chosen because the film was co-produced by Road Movies, the Berlin-based film company of director Wim Wenders. In Hamburg, the team stays at the Steigenberger Hotel at Heiligengeistbrücke 4.

After arriving, the team and staff take a boat trip on a lake within the city limits of Hamburg. The lake, connected to the river Alster, consists of two parts: Außenalster and the smaller Binnenalster, where the boat trip starts.

On the left is the town hall, located at Rathausmarkt (see also the blog post Tomorrow Never Dies), on the right the 'Denkmal für die Gefallenen beider Weltkriege'. This monument in the form of a pillar with a relief of a grieving mother with child was erected in 1931 in memory of the fallen of the First World War. In 1938, the Nazis declared it to be 'entartete Kunst' and removed it. After the Second World War, the pillar was reconstructed and now commemorates the victims of both World Wars.

Because we did not do a tour, the photos do not entirely match.