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FILM

The Local’s best bets for the Berlinale

With almost 400 films and countless other events accompanying this year’s Berlinale, choosing what to see can be a daunting task. Fortunately, The Local has sifted out a sampling of the festival’s most interesting offerings.

Published: 9 February 2011 08:51 CET
The Local's best bets for the Berlinale
Photo: DPA

Though lagging behind Cannes and Venice in terms of glamour, the Berlinale claims to be the world’s largest film festival open to the public. Anyone with the pluck to negotiate the overwhelming line-up can experience the best global cinema has to offer.

From the festival’s main categories, the winners are:

BERLINALE SPECIAL

“A Girl Called Rosemarie”

In honour of the untimely death of great German producer Bernd Eichinger, the festival will screen his 1996 film, “Das Mädchen Rosemarie.” The charming film about a lovely but naive social climber stars Berlinale jury member Nina Hoss in her first title role.

“Late Bloomers”

Another jury member, the luminous Isabella Rossellini, stars in this romantic comedy with William Hurt, portraying a couple of a certain age. French director Julie Gavras explores what happens to a relationship after the children are gone and the problems of ageing set in.

COMPETITION

All 16 films competing for the top Golden Bear prize for best film, and the Silver Bears for best acting, production and screenplay, are likely to be well worth seeing. Here are a few of our favourites.

“Almanya”

In 1964 Germany’s one-millionth guest worker from Turkey arrived. This film follows the fictional life of guest worker one-million-and-one. Written and directed by two Turkish-German sisters who used their own childhood memories to shape the story, it explores the identity of Germany’s largest group of immigrants.

“Cave of Forgotten Dreams”

It’s running out of competition, but that’s no reason to overlook the European premiere of this 3D film by legendary German director Werner Herzog about the Chauvet Pont d’Arc cave in southern France, believed to hold the oldest cave paintings in the world. The cavern’s delicate environment prevents public access, but there has long been a plan to allow a single filmmaker in to explore the mystery for a fee of just €1. Herzog was (and is) the man. He ate a shoe once. He can do whatever he wants.

“PINA”

Another 3D film by a top-notch German director, Wim Wenders’ “PINA” honours his late friend, famed German choreographer Pina Bausch. The medium is said to bring the viewer into the thick of her sensual ensemble and the surrounding city of Wuppertal. Running out of competition.

PANORAMA

This section focuses on new and provocative independent films, and this year’s themes centre on migration, corruption and intimate filming styles. It also offers viewers a chance to vote for their favourite film for the Panorama Audience Award (PPP). The “TEDDY” Queer Film Award is also issued for movies in the section, which explores LGBT issues.

“Rent Boys”

Following five male prostitutes in Berlin, this documentary tries to avoid the stereotypes connected to the profession. The subjects include young Roma with impoverished families, a civil war refugee from Bosnia and a young Romanian whose family relies on prostitution for their income.

“Tomboy”

This French film tells the story of 10-year-old Laure, a little girl who passes herself off as a boy after moving to a new neighbourhood. Naturally things get complicated.

“The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975”

Swedish director Göran Hugo Olsson explores the legacy of the Black Power movement through previously unpublished documentary material from researchers in his country, where some people were particularly fascinated with the movement during the 1970s. Material includes interviews with civil rights activist Stokely Carmichael, Black Panther founders Bobby Seal and Huey P. Newton, and Black Power activists Angela Davis and Eldridge Cleaver.

PERSPEKTIVE

Those looking to get down with the locals can beef up on their Deutsch skills with the 11 films in the German programme as it celebrates its 10th anniversary.

“Stuttgart 21 – think to remember!”

This documentary follows the ongoing demonstrations against controversial rail project Stuttgart 21 – one of the largest grassroots movements to hit Germany in years, and one that may resonate for years to come.

FORUM

This section is a chance for young experimental filmmakers to splash onto the cinema scene and make the most of restriction-free entry requirements. The programme also includes exhibitions, talks, radio broadcasts and stage performances.

”Submarine”

What would independent film be without navel-gazing coming-of-age stories? Mop-topped teen protagonist Oliver Tate is both trying to bring his family back together and lose his virginity to quirky girlfriend Jordana. But he may not be quite as clever as he thinks.

”Heaven’s Story”

Don’t forget snacks for this epic four-hour film by Japanese director Zeze Takahisam about revenge and how it sets a chain of tragic events into motion. Each new character has a different relationship with death and killing, all against a background of strange settings and coincidences.

RETROSPECTIVE/HOMAGE

For cinema fans who want to bone up on their film trivia facts or see that influential film they’ve been meaning to look up, the Retrospective and Homage sections are their chance. This year they honour Swedish director Ingmar Bergman and German actor Armin Mueller-Stahl.

”Fanny and Alexander”

Considered by many to be Bergman’s magnum opus, the pre-World War I saga following the Ekdahl family won four Academy awards and brought the director international fame in 1983.

”Night on Earth”

Revisit director Jim Jarmusch’s set of five vignettes exploring the bond between taxi drivers and their passengers around the world. In New York, actor Armin Mueller-Stahl portrays an East German immigrant who isn’t much of a driver. Also starring Winona Ryder, Roberto Benigni and a stellar soundtrack by Tom Waits.

SHORTS

In one of the festival’s more experimental sections, brief films are shown in clusters. You can’t go wrong with a mixed bag. Here are two that stand out.

”Scenes From the Suburbs”

Sure to be among the favourite shorts of the festival, director Spike Jonze expands a music video into a 28-minute film about teenagers wandering aimlessly around town one summer.

”Night Fishing”

The Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook, who also made the popular feature-length film “Old Boy,” teamed up with his brother Park Chan-kyong to shoot this film made entirely with an iPhone.

GENERATION:

Find something for your precocious wee ones and tweens in this section, which is split into “Generation Kplus” for the 13 and under crowd, and “Generation 14plus” for the more grown-up children. Many of the films, set in exotic far-off places, will appeal to budding geographers. But if you don’t think your rugrats can sit still through English subtitles, opt for the section’s few original English films. Our picks:

”Griff the Invisible”

“True Blood” star Ryan Kwanten stars in this 14plus feature about a young man who is bullied by day, but an imaginary superhero by night. But it’s his new girlfriend Melody who ends up doing most of the rescuing.

“Red Dog”

Canines are among the best children’s movie protagonists. As an old dog dies in the back room of a pub in Western Australia in 1971, patrons recall stories of how he touched their lives in the wild region.

AWARDS SHOW

Microwave some popcorn, put on your slippers and catch the highly-anticipated Berlinale Awards Ceremony from your couch on TV. The elaborate gala event at the Berlinale Palast will present the festival’s most important prizes, the Gold and Silver Bears. Tune in on February 20 to German channel ZDF theaterkanal starting at 7:40 pm.

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DISCOVER GERMANY

Eight amazing German museums to explore this spring

With thousands of years of history in Germany to explore, you’re never going to run out of museums to scratch the itch to learn about and fully experience the world of the past.

Published: 5 April 2024 10:46 CEST
Eight amazing German museums to explore this spring

Here are eight of our favourite museums across Germany’s 16 states for you to discover for yourself. 

Arche Nebra

Nebra, Saxony-Anhalt

One day, around 1600 BCE, local Bronze Age peoples buried one of their most precious objects – the Nebra Sky Disk, a copper, gold, and bronze disk that acted as a calendar to help them plant crops. This was a matter of life and death at the time. 

Over three thousand years later, in 1999, it was uncovered by black market treasure hunters, becoming Germany’s most significant archaeological find. 

While the Sky Disk itself is kept in the (really very good)  State Museum of Pre- and Early History in nearby Halle, the site of the discovery is marked by the Arche Nebra, a museum explaining prehistoric astronomy and the cultural practices of the people who made it. 

Kids will love the planetarium, explaining how the disk was used. 

Atomkeller Museum

Halgerloch, Baden-Württemberg

From the distant to the very recent past – in this case, the Nazi atomic weapons programme. Even as defeat loomed, Nazi scientists such as Werner Heisenberg were trying to develop a nuclear bomb. 

While this mainly took place in Berlin, an old beer cellar under the town of Halgerloch, south of Stuttgart, was commandeered as the site of a prototype fission reactor. 

A squad of American soldiers captured and dismantled the reactor as the war ended. Still, the site was later turned into a museum documenting German efforts to create a working reactor – one that they could use to develop a bomb.

It’s important to note that you don’t need to be a physicist to understand what they were trying to do here, as the explanatory materials describe the scientist’s efforts in a manner that is easy to understand. 

German National Museum

Nuremberg, Bavaria

Remember that scene at the end of ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’, where an unnamed government official wheels the Ark of the Covenant into an anonymous government warehouse? This could possibly be the German equivalent – albeit far better presented. 

The German National Museum was created in 1852 as a repository for the cultural history of the German nation – even before the country’s founding. In the intervening 170 years, it’s grown to swallow an entire city block of Nuremberg, covering 60,000 years of history and hundreds of thousands of objects. 

If it relates to the history of Germany since prehistoric times, you’re likely to find it here.

Highlights include several original paintings and etchings by Albrecht Dürer, the mysterious Bronze Age ‘Gold Hats’, one of Europe’s most significant collections of costuming and musical instruments, and a vast display of weapons, armour and firearms. 

European Hansemuseum

Lübeck, Schleswig-Holstein

In the late Middle Ages, the political and economic centre of the world was focused on the North Sea and the Baltic German coasts. 

This was the domain of the Hanseatic League, one of the most powerful trading alliances in human history. Centuries before the Dutch and British East India Companies, they made in-roads to far-flung corners.

The European Hansemuseum in the former Hanseatic city of Lübeck tells the story of the league’s rise and eventual fall, its day-to-day operations, and its enduring legacy.

This museum is fascinating for adults and kids. It uses original artefacts and high-tech interactive elements to tell tales of maritime adventure. Younger visitors will also be enchanted by the museum’s augmented reality phone app that asks them to help solve mysteries. 

Fugger & Welser Adventure Museum

Augsburg, Germany

The Hanseatic League was not the only economic power in the late Middle Ages. The Fugger and Welser families of Augsburg may have been the richest in the world until the 20th century.

From humble beginnings, both families grew to become incredibly powerful moneylenders, funding many of the wars of the 16th century and the conquest of the New World.

The Fugger & Welser Adventure Museum not only explains the rise of both patrician families but also the practices that led to their inconceivable wealth—including, sadly, the start of the Transatlantic slave trade. 

The museum also documents the short-lived Welser colony in Venezuela, which, if it had survived, could have resulted in a very different world history.

This museum has many high tech displays, making it a very exciting experience for moguls of any age.

Teutoburg Forest Museum

Kalkriese, Lower Saxony

Every German child learns this story at some point: One day at the end of summer 9 AD, three legions of the Roman army marched into the Teutoburg forest… and never came out. 

Soldiers sent after the vanished legions discovered that they had been slaughtered to a man.

Arminius, a German who had been raised as a Roman commander, had betrayed the three legions to local Germanic tribes, who ambushed them while marching through the forest. 

Today, the probable site of the battle – we can’t entirely be sure – is marked by a museum called the Varusschlacht Museum (Literally ‘Varus Battle Museum’, named after the loyal Roman commander). 

The highlights here are the finds – made all the more eerie by the knowledge that they were looted and discarded from the legionaries in the hours following the ambush. 

German Romanticism Museum

Frankfurt, Hesse

The Romantic era of art, music and literature is one of Germany’s greatest cultural gifts to the world, encompassing the work of poets such as Goethe and Schiller, composers like Beethoven and artists in the vein of Caspar David Friedrich.

Established in 2021 next to the house where Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born, the German Romanticism Museum is the world’s largest collection of objects related to the Romantic movement. 

In addition to artefacts from some of the greatest names in German romanticism, in 2024, you’ll find a major exhibition exploring Goethe’s controversial 1774 novel, ‘The Sorrows of Young Werther’, and another on the forest as depicted as dark and dramatic in the art of the period. 

Gutenberg Castle

Haßmersheim, Baden-Württemberg

Sometimes being a smaller castle is a good thing. The relatively small size and location of Guttenburg Castle, above the River Neckar near Heilbronn, protected it from war and damage over eight hundred years – it’s now the best preserved Staufer-era castle in the country.

While the castle is still occupied by the Barons of Gemmingen-Guttenberg, the castle now also contains a museum, that uses the remarkably well-preserved castle interiors to explore centuries of its history – and the individuals that passed through it.

After you’ve explored the museum—and the current exhibition that uses Lego to document life in the Middle Ages —it’s also possible to eat at the castle’s tavern and stay overnight!

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