SHARE
COPY LINK

MUNICH

What’s on in Germany: November 17 – 23

This Week's Highlights: African film in Berlin, computer art in Dresden, and Al Di Meola plays Stuttgart.

What's on in Germany:  November 17 - 23
Photo: Notre étrangère at Afrikamera 2011

BERLIN

Film

Afrikamera 2011: African Filmfestivals – Beyond Present and Future

Movies from African film festivals like Rencontres du Film Court in Madagascar and the Kenya International Film Festival are being shown in Berlin this week. See shorts from Rwanda, and find out what happens to Aicha and Radhia after the owners of an abandoned palace they’ve been living in come home, in Tunisian director Raja Amari’s Les Secrets.

Price: €6.50

Location: Kino Arsenal, Potsdamer Strasse 2

Times: November 16 – 20

Phone: 030 2695 5111

More Information: www.arsenal-berlin.de

Children’s Events

Fairytale Days

Sing American children’s songs Thursday during Berlin Fairytale Days. Stories from the USA take centre stage at this year’s event, and highlights include a Native American market at Nikolaiviertel where the kids can take a peak inside an actual Indian teepee, and a Thanksgiving celebration for children complete with paper pilgrim hats and turkey crafts.

Price: Various

Location: Various

Times: November 10 – 27

More Information: www.maerchenland-ev.de

COLOGNE

Music/Concerts

Nocturne 40: Stephan Matthieu

Stephen Matthieu has created sound installations in some really interesting spaces, including a glass blowing factory and an antique throne hall. For his piece “A Static Place,” the Saarbrücken-based artist and composer pulled from his collection of 1920s-era recordings, digitally processing the sounds of Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque music played through a gramophone. Hear this piece and “Les Chemins de Fer” Thursday night in Cologne.

Price: Free

Location: Aula der Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln, Filzengraben 2

Times: Thursday, November 17, 8pm

Phone: 0221 201 890

More Information: www.khm.de

DRESDEN

Festivals

Cynetart – International Festival for Computer Based Art Dresden

Glitch. Beep. Click. Lights flash. Shadows emerge. Colours shift. The Cynetart Festival gathers artists from all over the world who use computers to create their multisensoric installations, hi-tech dance pieces, and multi-channel sound systems. Experience new developments in digital culture this week in Dresden.

Price: Various

Location: Festspielhaus Hellerau, Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse 56

Times: Wednesday, November 16 – Saturday, November 26

Tickets: 0351 8 62 73 90

More Information: www.t-m-a.de

FRANKFURT

Galleries/Museums

Douglas Gordon

First, he slowed down Psycho to a terrifying 24-hour crawl. Then, he caught on film every breath and strut of French soccer star Zinedine Zidane. For his latest work k.364, Scottish artist Douglas Gordon filmed violist Avri Levitan, violinist Roi Shiloah and the Amadeus Chamber Orchestra of Polish Radio performing Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola. The film begins with the soloists’ journey from Berlin to Warsaw, and the most fascinating part is the conversation that ensues en route. See it along with more of the MMK’s Gordon holdings when the new exhibition opens at MMK Thursday.

Price: €5

Location: MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst, Domstrasse 10

Times: Thursday, November 17, 8pm (Opening); Tuesday – Sunday, 10am-6pm; Wednesday, 10am-8pm; November 19 – March 25, 2012 (Regular Hours)

Phone: 069 212 30447

More Information: www.mmk-frankfurt.de

Festivals

Visionale 11 – Hessian Youth Media Festival

From toddlers to twenty somethings, this media festival offers an array of films and videos for all aspects of the youth spectrum. Short animations, documentaries, and music videos created by young filmmakers explore all the hot topics from football to BFFs. The kids are all right.

Price: TBD

Location: Gallus Theater, Kleyerstrasse 15

Times: Friday, November 18 – Sunday, November 20

Phone: 069 949 424 22

More Information: www.visionale-hessen.de

HAMBURG

Galleries/Museums

The Collection of Groundskeeper Wilhelm Werner

Talk about loving your place of employment. When bombs were falling over Hamburg during the Second World War, Hamburger Kunsthalle custodian Wilhelm Werner stood on the roof and extinguished the explosives that landed there. During his 38 years at the museum, Werner became acquainted with many artists and amassed a collection of over 500 works by the likes of Heinrich Stegemann, Willem Grimm, and Hans Martin Ruwoldt. Go take a look at his private collection this week at the Hamburger Kunsthalle.

Price: €12

Location: Hamburger Kunsthalle, Glockengiesserwall 20095

Times: Tuesdays – Sundays, 10am-6pm; Thursdays, 10am-9pm; through January 15, 2012

Phone: 0 40 428 131 200

More Information: www.hamburger-kunsthalle.de

MUNICH

Theatre

Spielart

DJ Heiner Hendrix holds court Friday night at Muffatwerk during Spielart’s opening party. The two-week festival features some of the most innovative new theatre from around the world. Get wrapped up in Trans-Europa-Bollywood’s “performical” “God’s Entertainment,” then take a nap at Angelika Fink and Satu Herrala’s installation “Sleep for Africa.”

Price: Various; €70 Festival Pass

Location: Various

Times: Friday, November 18 – Sunday, December 4

Tickets: 180 54 81 81 81 (€ 0.14 per minute landline; € 0.42 mobile)

More Information: www.spielart.org

Music/Concerts

Joshua Redman and Brad Meldau Duo

Two of New York’s brightest jazz stars are playing in Munich Thursday night. Sidle up to a table within the underground recesses of Unterfahrt and witness the musical conversation of an exceptional duo.

Price: €35-45

Location: Jazzclub Unterfahrt, Einsteinstrasse 42

Times: Thursday, November 17, 8:30pm

Phone: 089 448 27 94

More Information: www.unterfahrt.de

Public Art

Seven Screens – Herlinde Koelbl

“You have taken away my heart, with one look you have taken it” is the title of German photographer and filmmaker Herlinde Koelbl’s video installation for Osram Art Project’s Seven Screens. Inspired by Solomon’s “Song of Songs,” the piece centers on the importance of seeing. Blink along to the big eyes and lips that flash across the six-meter high LED towers.

Price: Free

Location: The green at Osram Headquarters, Hellabrunner Strasse 1

Times: through May 15, 2012

More Information: www.osram.com

STUTTGART

Music/Concerts

Jazz Open Nights Stuttgart – Al Di Meola

Al Di Meola started tearing a streak through the jazz world at age 19 when he joined Chick Corea’s band Return to Forever. A few years later he joined guitar cohorts John Mclaughlin and Paco de Lucia on the legendary album Friday Night in San Francisco. Catch the virtuoso in concert Friday night in Stuttgart.

Price: €34.55 – 39.55

Location: Mercedes-Benz Museum, Mercedesstrasse 100

Times: Friday, November 18, 8pm

Tickets: 0711 99 79 99 99

More Information: www. newsroom.mercedes-benz-classic.com

MUNICH

Four injured as WWII bomb explodes near Munich train station

Four people were injured, one of them seriously, when a World War II bomb exploded at a building site near Munich's main train station on Wednesday, emergency services said.

Smoke rises after the WWII bomb exploded on a building site in Munich.
Smoke rises after the WWII bomb exploded on a building site in Munich. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Privat

Construction workers had been drilling into the ground when the bomb exploded, a spokesman for the fire department said in a statement.

The blast was heard several kilometres away and scattered debris hundreds of metres, according to local media reports.

Images showed a plume of smoke rising directly next to the train tracks.

Bavaria interior minister Joachim Herrmann told Bild that the whole area was being searched.

Deutsche Bahn suspended its services on the affected lines in the afternoon.

Although trains started up again from 3pm, the rail operator said there would still be delays and cancellations to long-distance and local travel in the Munich area until evening. 

According to the fire service, the explosion happened near a bridge that must be passed by all trains travelling to or from the station.

The exact cause of the explosion is unclear, police said. So far, there are no indications of a criminal act.

WWII bombs are common in Germany

Some 75 years after the war, Germany remains littered with unexploded ordnance, often uncovered during construction work.

READ ALSO: What you need to know about WWII bomb disposals in Germany

However, most bombs are defused by experts before they explode.

Last year, seven World War II bombs were found on the future location of Tesla’s first European factory, just outside Berlin.

Sizeable bombs were also defused in Cologne and Dortmund last year.

In 2017, the discovery of a 1.4-tonne bomb in Frankfurt prompted the evacuation of 65,000 people — the largest such operation since the end of the war in Europe in 1945.

SHOW COMMENTS