Der Tagesspiegel 23.01.2007

The paper prints the last article by the Turkish Armenian journalist and publisher Hrant Dink (here in English), who was murdered in Istanbul on Friday. In the article, originally published in Dink's magazine Agos, the author describes how the country's judicial system and media have branded him an "enemy of the Turks." And he openly voices his fears: "Those people who have sought to isolate and weaken me have achieved their goal, that much is clear. With their slander, they've managed to get a substantial part of society to see Hrant Dink as someone who insults Turkishness. My computer is full of protest and threat letters from this kind of people. One letter was sent from Bursa, and voiced an explicit threat. I passed it on to the prosecutor's office in Sisli, until now without result. How realistic are these threats, how unrealistic? I simply can't know. But what I do find both threatening and unbearable is the psychological torture. I'm consistently dogged by the question: what do people think of me? Unfortunately I'm now widely known, and I constantly feel people's eyes on me and hear them whisper: look, isn't that the Armenian? Then the torture sets in like a reflex. On the one hand it consists of worries, and on the other of alarm. At times I'm alert and at times afraid. Like a dove."


Die Welt 23.01.2007

Hanns-Georg Rodek refers to an article in Der Spiegel, in which producer and president of the German Film Academy Günter Rohrbach accused film critics of becoming autistic and insular. Rohrbach takes as example Valeska Griesebach's "Sehnsucht", which was highly praised by critics but was only seen by 24,000 viewers, versus Tom Tykwer's "Das Parfum", (Perfume) which was decimated by critics, but pulled audiences of 5.5 million. Rohrbach asks, "Do we really need these vain egomaniacs dancing pirouettes all over our films?"


Berliner Zeitung 23.01.2007

Critic Josef Schnelle suspects that what lies behind Günter Rohrbach's attack of German film critics is an attempt to generate good publicity for Tom Tykwer's film "Das Parfum." "Rohrbach effectively admits to something that is generally only discussed behind closed doors; he and other influential types made a few calls to senior editors in German media to put a little heat on critics that were not kind to 'Das Parfum.' What's going on here? Positive reviews don't make a film a hit and negative reviews don't make a film a flop. Intelligent discussion can lend a film and cinema generally a new quality. Are the president of the German Film Academy and his backers not in favour of that? Maybe it's just a coincidence that the nominations for the German Film Prize 2007, to be awarded on May 4, have just begun. At stake is a lot of money and one clear favourite: 'Das Parfum.' Valeska Grisebach's Film 'Sehnsucht' and other small films haven't even been nominated."


Süddeutsche Zeitung 23.01.2007

Ulrich Baer notes that something has changed in the way Americans see Germany, referring to the all-night jubilation at Frank Wedekind's "Frühlings Erwachen" (Spring Awakening) on Broadway and the success of the exhibition "Glitter and Doom" with portraits from the Weimar Republic at the MoMA (review). "It's no longer the case that all things German are coated with flowery explanations or reduced to their proto-fascist content. Ten years ago, Germany was presented as a screen, stage and museum all in one, the historic setting of the Third Reich; today it is considered historically interesting, free of values.... This normalisation comes, however, at a high price. The non-prejudiced approach to German culture is only possible because Germany as a political and cultural entity is disappearing from view." Germany is becoming an "unknown country," says Baer, quoting the British historian Tony Judt. He laments "that there are not enough young historians who speak German, who can study primary sources. Auschwitz is increasingly being taught in the context of interdisciplinary seminars by theoreticians who treat the Shoah as a crisis torn out of German history. Last year in the entire US, only four university positions in German history were announced."

Nicholas Negroponte, founder of Wired and the MIT Media Lab, describes to Bernd Graff and Hans-Jürgen Jakobs how society will become increasingly digital. "In twenty or thirty years there'll be more journalists than today, not fewer. News and information will presumably gain in value, unlike the paper it's now printed on. People will still want discussions, news analyses and opinions, in a word in-depth information, but not on the supporting medium produced from dead trees. Just think of the printed share prices in newspapers. Today that's absurd, because you can get them in real time online."


Neue Zürcher Zeitung 23.01.2007

Ulf Meyer has had a look at the imposing new National Art Center Tokyo (NACT) in Tokyo's Roppongi district. "Two large concrete cones in the foyer look like petrified tornadoes from the second generation of modernity. They give you the feeling they've generated the waves in the building's facade. The building was designed by Kisho Kurokawa, one of the best-known Japanese architects. But only a tired afterglow remains of the daring metabolic capsule buildings with which Kurokawa wanted to cover Tokyo Bay in the 70s. Visitors to the NACT first see a round pavilion with just one, completely surprising, function. On rainy days, guests can lock up their umbrellas here before going to see the exhibits inside." (See our feature "Mr Metabolism" on Kisho Kurokawa).