Twenty-five years after his cult TV series, Kir Royal, director Helmut Dietl has now come released a sort of ?sequel? for the big screen. Zettl focuses on the high-flying career of a ruthless media man in Berlin. As satire, however, the frigid figures in Zettl fail to warm up to viewers. ...
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There's no quenching German thirst for the organic lemonade in a Bionade bottle. The factory can't meet demand and has sent Coca Cola packing. Cornelius and Fabian Lange describe the rise of the Bionade empire out of the ashes of the failing Peter brewery in what was once a failing region in Germany - soon to be home to the Bionade valley.
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Historian Joachim Fest's memoirs of his youth, "Ich Nicht," document an elitism that seeks to distance itself from petty-bourgeois National Socialism, and form a counterpoint to the prevailing culture of memory in the Federal Republic of Germany. Although the historical establishment tended to view Fest askance, his recollections document a genuinely cultivated German bourgeoisie. By Jens Bisky
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The Arab intellectual behaves like a despotic father. No internal family matter may be exposed to the outside world. Regardless of what the reality may be, a facade of unbroken unity must be maintained. In private talks you hear opinions that are radically different from what is published in the newspapers the next day. By Khalid al-Maaly (Image © Brigitte Friedrich, Cologne)
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Autumn is the season of art in Berlin. Elke Buhr surveys the multitude of galleries, festivals and fairs and comes to the conclusion that art is mainstream and Berlin is at the centre of it all. (Image: Berliner Liste © Anja Vormann, Sausage Faces, 2002)
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The cancellation of the Mozart opera "Idomeneo" in Berlin's Deutsche Oper for fear of reprisals from the Muslim community has unleashed a storm of protest. Harald Jähner, feuilleton editor of the Berliner Zeitung, finds the opera house's decision not only cowardly but dangerous.
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Berlin is host to the music trade fair Popkomm. For the first time since the Internet boom and bust in 2000, things are looking up for pop music. After years of steady decline, shrinking sales figures and what looked like certain death, hope has come back to the music industry. By Tobias Rapp
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It's finally happened. The film version of Patrick Süskind's mega-hit "Perfume" has hit the screens. Director Tom Tykwer talks with Dietmar Kammerer about his passion for the project, his proximity to the central figure - a serial killer in pursuit of love - and covering whole neighbourhoods with a layer of filth.
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The German housewife is the pillar of the nation - she cleans, organises, supports, nourishes and forgets that at one time, she had professional aspirations. Susanne Mayer takes a look at the employment situation of German women and concludes that the state is investing far too much in folded underwear.
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Having been violently attacked by the husband of one of her clients, the Berlin lawyer and Islam critic Seyran Ates has closed her legal practice. A fighter for human rights resigns. By Mariam Lau
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Elke Heidenreich is smitten by the Glyndebourne Festival in England and asks herself why can't Germans do this - enjoy the exquisite pleasure of opera without feeling obliged to analyse it to death?
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Post-Holocaust morality and the violence of today: Navid Kermani says Israel weakens itself if it builds on military might, and forgets its past as victim.
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Israel is not only defending its territorial security, it is fighting an Islamic anti-Semitism which European politics are determined to ignore. When it comes to the crunch, the Europeans' "critical dialogue" and culturally-obsessed interpretations, not to mention their playing down of anti-Semitism, have contributed to keeping the Israeli-Palestinian conflict alive. By Tjark Kunstreich
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The new permanent exhibition at the German Historical Museum has reopened in Berlin's Zeughaus. Historian Christoph Jahr says the show is too soft on the GDR, makes unreflective use of both communist and Nazi lingo and is overly rooted in the idea of the nation-state. Lots to say, but little substance. (Image: Bernhard Stigel: Kaiser Maximilian I, 1496)
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What is it that people find in St. Moritz, 1,856 metres above sea level? Is it the proximity of the sky? The snow, the cold, the peace, the pure air? Or is it a sense of their own impermanence? German novelist Thomas Hettche travels in the footsteps of Nietzsche and the jet set to Switzerland's exclusive resort.
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The Grass confession has spawned no end of consternation, reprobation and contemplation among Germany's intellectual elders. The writers Eva Menasse (born 1970) and Michael Kumpfmüller (born 1961) wonder when their generation will have a chance to set the tone of German debate - on issues that really matter, and without the deadening bass tone of German history in the background.
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