Michael Califra lived and worked in Germany, mostly in Berlin, from 1986 to 1998 where he wrote the novel, "No Man's Land". When he first considered writing about the Berlin it was still divided. The challenge then was to render in fiction a situation more absurdly fictional than any he could imagine. When the Wall fell and Germany and Berlin were reunified, it soon became very clear that the city he knew would soon be erased, just as the Berlin of the Kaiser had been overtaken by Weimar Berlin, which had then been wiped away by Hitler's capital, which was then replaced by Cold War cities of East and West Berlin. Wanting to document the place he knew would soon dissolve into history was the motivation behind writing his novel.

The author has also executive produced feature films starring such Hollywood talent as Rosario Dawson, Cuba Gooding Jr., Paul Rudd and Winona Ryder.