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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The Mainz-based composer Volker David Kirchner is widely seen as one of Germany's foremost - and most popular - contemporary classical composers. He talks to Stefan Schickhaus about his love for chamber pieces, the holy trininty of the German music world and why it doesn't pay to write opera. (Photo © Stefan Schickhaus)
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Baden-Württemberg's premier Günther Oettinger made a few off comments in his speech at the funeral of his predecessor Hans Filbinger last week. Namely that Filbinger, who had worked as a judge for the National Socialist regime, had opposed the Nazis. Having been rapped on the knuckles by Angela Merkel, Oettinger recanted, as little as possible. Then he granted himself an apology. Arno Widmann is not impressed.
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The world's most famous string quartet leaves the concert stage after forty years. An encounter with the Alban Berg Quartet. By Volker Hagedorn
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Ingo Schulze has reached new literary heights in his latest collection of short stories. Full of digressions and distractions, full of calculated humility, Schulze turns what seems to be non-art into art in its highest form. By Ulrich Greiner
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It seems no coicidence that the West is volunteering to restrict economic growth, now that it's stopped anyway. And that Germany wants to put a limit on just about every pleasure it's ever known. Why are we punishing ourselves? Because politicians need a remedy for their own feelings of powerlessness. By Jens Jessen
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The art of glimmer and of deception. Seminal works show the roots and origins of the Op Art movement in an exhibition at Frankfurt's Schirn Kunsthalle. The dynamic of black and white fields meets snuffling electric motors. And a bachelor machine makes jokes and winks. By Ulf Erdmann Ziegler
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The UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions entered into force on March 18. Rüdiger Wischenbart gives a quick overview of the realities behind translation.
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With her first novel "The Hour Between Dog and Wolf," Silke Scheuermann has written her way into the top league of young authors. The story is, once again, of young women saddled with privilege and boredom. But the language is cool, underwater movement and its author as intelligent as she is subtle. By Ulrich Greiner
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Much of the work of the Renaissance sculptor Conrat Meit has been lost over the centuries. The Bayerisches Nationalmuseum in Munich has pulled together a goodly collection from around the world which proves Meit to be a master of the pot-bellied feminine ideal of the day. By Birgit Sonna
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With an exhibition opening in Hanover, photographer Wolfgang Tillmans talks to Dirk Peitz about the digital revolution, the futile search for absolute truth and his private newspaper archive.
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Boy group Tokio Hotel's second album "Zimmer 483" comes out tomorrow. Teen idols in Germany, France and beyond, the band has provoked heated controversy among fans and foes over singer Bill Kaulitz' androgynous eroticism. By Elke Buhr
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In its sixth year under Dieter Kosslick, the Berlinale has flung itself into the breach for boredom, lack of inspiration and conventionality. There were a handful of creditable, daring, self-assured films. Only these will be mentioned here. By Ekkehard Knörer. All the bears at a glance here.
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In Jacques Rivette's Competition film "Don't Touch the Axe", Jeanne Balibar and Guillaume Depardieu besiege themselves in an exquisitely wrought and rapier sharp love battle. And in the claustrophobic "Brand Upon the Brain", Guy Maddin serves up a huge portion of brain nectar.
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Tadeusz Borowski survived Auschwitz, became a Communist, and committed suicide in 1951. A new edition of his stories was published in German this year: morally questionable, but a milestone in Holocaust literature nonetheless. Even Dante's "Inferno" pales by comparison. By Arno Lustiger
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Zhang Lu's "Desert Dream" follows life in a yurt in the wide, empty expanses of the Mongolian steppes, punctuated only by North Korean folk songs. In "Celebration" Olivier Meyrou visits the spectral fashion house of Yves Saint Laurent. And Jack Snyder's "300", the film of Frank Miller's comic, is not the world's worst film, but it's damn close.
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