Never before have there been so many private collectors making extensive acquisitions of contemporary art. Are they the real key figures of a global art business?...
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In Stefan Ruzowitzky's "The Counterfeiters", concentration camp victims are set to work making fake money for the Nazis. Robert de Niro's "The Good Shepherd" shows a block of ice created by the Cold War. Park Chan-wook's "I'm a Cyborg, but that's OK" inquires with refreshing naivity into the meaning of life. And Rudolphe Marconi shows Karl Largerfeld and his laissez-faire attitude towards status, privilege and luck.
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Pascal Ferran's "Lady Chatterley" has kept cheap thrills and overbearing symbolism at an arm's length. It is self-assured, unpretentious and observant. "This Filthy World" by Jeff Garlin reveals filmmaker John Waters as an exquisitely funny stand-up comedian. And in Hong Sangsoo's "Woman on the Beach," true faces emerge from behind the booze.
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The Berlinale opened with Olivier Dahan's film "La vie en Rose", a confrontational Piaf portrait replete with smeared make-up, champagne and morphine, flunkies and fans, misery and deity. Altogether much more exciting than the "The Good German" by Steven Soderbergh which fell flat on its faux forties face.
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The Berlinale opens tonight with Olivier Dahan's film "La vie en rose". The programme is the usual hotchpotch we have come to expect from director Dieter Kosslick. Ekkehard Knörer guides us through the rather populist selection of the Competition and the overwhelming variety that awaits film fans in the Panorama and Forum sections.
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Singer Masha Qrella and her band Contriva invoke the lost cultural landscape of northeastern Berlin. Their music is rough, sketchy and irresistible. By Michael Pilz
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Maren Kroymann made a name for herself doing stand-up. Now she shines in Angelina Maccarone's film "Verfolgt" (pursued) as the older lover in an S&M relationship. The plot description is enough to make most people wince but the film is an exercise in restraint. It also won the Golden Leopard in Locarno in 2006. By Liane von Billerbeck
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After weeks of political wrangling, the city of Berlin has finally decided to offer poet, singer and GDR dissident Wolf Biermann honorary citizenship. Until today it looked highly unlikely that the two governing parties, the SPD and the Linkspartei, would endorse the decision. Thomas Steinfeld argues the man deserves every form of patriotic distinction going.
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Germany as a culture does not correspond to the German nation. Which means that the much-quoted truth that the Germans were united by their literature or their language has always also been a lie. For German-Iranian writer Navid Kermani the most German of German writers is none other than Franz Kafka.
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Pop culture has long made a joke of the Führer, while German mainstream culture has been a little more reserved. With "Mein Führer," Dani Levy presents a Hitler to laugh and cry at. According to Harald Martenstein, this only sort of works.
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Historian Norbert Frei invited specialists of the National Socialist era to Jena for a kind of family reunion. At debate was the history of the historians of National Socialism and the question of when, and if, the notion of objectivity begins to apply. By Stefan Reinecke
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A conversation with composer Wolfgang Rihm about productive solitude, the predominance of entertainment, and his new monodrama "Das Gehege" (The Aviary). By Thomas Assheuer and Claus Spahn
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Human reason is weighed down by questions it can neither reject nor answer beyond the shadow of a doubt. The existence of God is one such question, pitting spiritual needs against intellectual honesty. By Ernst Tugendhat
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While many Europeans are fed up with Europe, to others it seems like heaven on earth. In presenting itself as an economic power, Europe fails to take advantage of its emotional potential. This is the age of the image, but European stories no longer play a significant role in our theatres. The countries of Europe could dream the European dream if only we had faith in the power of our own imagery! A call to arms by German filmmaker Wim Wenders.
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Many young German directors are filming with an eye toward authentic stories. Reality is their key. And talking is kept to a minimum. Matthias Luthardt's film "Pingpong" is a paradigm of this Nouvelle Vague Allemande. By Hanns-Georg Rodek
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German painter Tomma Abts left for London twelve years ago. Her quiet, geometric paintings with Frisian names have just won her the Turner Prize. Morgan Falconer talked to her on the eve of award ceremony.
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