Every year during the Berlinale, INTERFILM BERLIN presents GOLDEN SHORTS – 12 audience favorites selected from the monthly 2008 SHORT ATTACKS screenings. This years’ selection played to a packed audience at Berlin’s famous VOLKSBUEHNE theater. After presenting an exquisite slate of shorts, the audience was invited to vote for the ultimate 2008 short film. And the winner is: Klaus Morschheuser’s animation, THE STORK, a charming short that sets the record straight about the stork delivering babies.Another favorite of mine was British filmmaker, Johnny Kelly’s animated film titled PROCRASTINATION. A far too well known activity for many of us: doing anything…
Browsing: Other Arts
A few weeks back, Berlin was the focus of a series of events at the New Museum in New York’s East Village. Opened the end of 2007 in its present location, The New Museum is yet another addition to the gentrification of the Bowery – a street that used to be known for its soup kitchens, homeless missions and the famous music club, CBGB’s, which closed at the end of 2006 and now houses designer John Varvatos’ fashion store. Slowly but surely, the Bowery is making way to new apartment buildings, restaurants, bars, fashion shops and high culture, like the…
In March, German Premiers, NY’s ongoing presentation of new and noteworthy German productions, organized by German Films, presented HILDE – a feature film by Kai Wessel, produced by Judy Tossell of Berlin based Egoli Tossell Film. Both filmmaker and producer were in town to present the film to a packed theater. The film had its world premier at this years Berlinale and just opened theatrically in Germany. Hildegard Knef, German actress, singer and writer – was an icon of postwar Germany. Born in 1925, she studied acting at the UFA film studios during the second world war, became a…
One of the highly anticipated films in the main section of the Berlinale was the German Anthology Collection DEUTSCHLAND 09 – 13 SHORT FILMS ABOUT THE STATE OF THE NATION. Initiated and produced by Tom Tykwer and Dirk Wilutzky’s production company Herbstfilm, the film was produced by Dirk Wilutzky and Verena Rahmig. Using fact, fiction and a few hybrids, some of Germany’s top emerging and established filmmakers offer interesting and inspiring snippets of subjects, they themselves and the German people struggle with these days. Dominik Graf’s thoughtful contribution THE ROAD WE DON’T WALK TOGETHER (DEN WEG, DEN WIR NICHT ZUSAMMEN…
Last September, award winning German documentary filmmaker Britta Wauer (EGON SCHULZ: A HEROES DEATH, THE RAPPAPORTS, OUR THREE LIVES, and others) spent two months in and around New York researching and filming her first feature length documentary titled GERDA’S SILENCE. I was the NY production manager for this documentary and, upon completion have now had the pleasure to review the film. Based on German journalist Knut Elstermann’s book of the same title, the documentary was produced by Volker Hahn, of Cologne based production company ZEITSPRUNG ENTERTAINMENT and premiered theatrically in Germany on November 6, 2008. GERDA’S SILENCE tells the devastating…
BERLIN, Germany — The bitter winds of winter are back at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival, and I don’t just mean the snow flurries and frozen writing fingers here in the Potzdammer Platz. (Global warming has made a brief appearance, but only as a film seminar topic, so bring along Arctic gloves.) Many of the official films themselves have gotten a chilly reception from the critics here, some justifiably, and some decidedly not. On the justifiable side is Stephen Frear’s disappointing period piece, Cheri, about an aging prostitute finding love in the very late afternoon of fin-de-siecle Paris. You…
In November 2004, German Film Services launched German Premieres, an ongoing presentation of new and noteworthy German films for the US market. This very successful screening series opened with Dennis Gansel’s NAPOLA. Since then, German Film Service NY representative Oliver Mahrdt has presented more than 15 films to the NY industry, ranging from such high-end documentaries as Thomas Grube’s TRIP TO ASIA (2008) to low-budget indie films like Robert Thalheim’s NETTO (2005). Earlier this December, German filmmaker Connie Walther arrived in New York to present her latest feature film, SCHATTENWELT (Long Shadows) (2008).Walther’s film tells the tragic story of Valerie,…
Mexican stage, TV and movie star Ofelia Medina electrifies audiences at the new Los Angeles Theater Center. What luck this Fall of 2008 to have the luxury of seeing Mexican artist Ofelia Medina on stage at the new LATC!We forget all too easily that movies, and even more so actors – owe so much to the STAGE. Recently I saw two plays at the new Los Angeles Theater Center, LATC, in a bold and uncompromising staging and interpretation by Mexican actress, writer/director Ofelia Medina (“Innocent Voices” 2004, “Frida” 1986) whose theater, TV and movie credits in Mexico are a testament…
CLUJ, Romania — One of Europe’s most innovative and newly-heralded filmmaking communities is Romania’s New Wave, which last summer was put in sharp focus at the country’s leading film forum, the Transylvania International Film Festival. CWB’s International Editor James Ulmer visited the Festival in June and spoke with its trio of lead executives about a variety of topics, from life after communism and the festival’s political birth pangs, to why drive-ins are Romania’s next Big Thing. Present were Honorary President Tudor Giurgiu; Festival Director Mihai Chirilov, who founded the festival in 2001 with Giurgiu; and Executive Director Rik Vermuelen.James: Some…
In Kagez Ke Phool, Guru Dutt comes to meet the Producers who want him to make movies their way – and refuses; the scene, the light, the camera, the emotion and the acting lifts and arrest a person to an enchanted level, not only the emotions can be felt in the throat, but also in the mind and soul, this is the power which Indian Cinema once possessed – and now lacks. Turn on any movie from last year, and sit through them, and not one image would be enchanting as it used to be, they will appear ordinary, like…