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Navigating the Berlinale with The Local

The Berlinale, while offering a bounty of great films, can be logistically challenging. But fear not, The Local has a few tips on keeping any funny business from blocking your escape into show business.

Published: 9 February 2011 08:00 CET
Navigating the Berlinale with The Local
Get in line! Photo: DPA

Get organised:

Plan ahead if you want to make the most of the Berlin International Film Festival’s unique offerings! The Berlinale website offers a wealth of information for curious festival-goers – in English. The best feature is “My Daily Planner,” where you can add your programme picks to create the ideal itinerary without accidental scheduling overlaps, and then print it out to take to the box office, or order select tickets online. You’ll also find English-language film and section descriptions to prepare you for the inevitable post-picture coffee Klatsch.

Know when tickets go on sale:

Berlinale ticket sales are tricky – not only do you have to find films that fit into your schedule before tickets go on sale, you also have to find time to order and pick them up before they’re gone.

Tickets go on sale online starting February 7 and cost between €8-12. They are available three days prior to regular shows, and four days ahead of competition film screenings. They sell out quickly!

A limited number of tickets are available online for payment by credit card only, but you still have to pick them up at the Potsdamer Platz Arkaden ticket counter location. An extra processing fee of €1.50 per ticket will be applied. Those who miss out on the online ticket sales should head to one of the three main ticket offices, which are open daily from 10 am to 8 pm. We suggest arriving as early as possible to join the queue, where the inconvenience will be tempered by plenty of time to observe a fascinating selection of fellow film fans.

Central ticket sales are at one of three locations: the atrium of the Arkaden at Potsdamer Platz, the lovely Kino International at Karl-Marx-Allee 33, and the Urania at An der Urania 17.

Procrastinators may also be able to get tickets at box offices just before films start, but their lack of organisation will cost an extra €2. This is also the only time that Berlinale offers discounts (half-price) to students, the unemployed, the military and the disabled.

Consider the venue:

There are 21 venues screening films for this year’s Berlinale, several of which are located on and around Potsdamer Platz and the Sony Center. That’s a shame, because art house films are best enjoyed in charming vintage theatres, not the Cinemaxx with two x’s. Lucky for the purists, there are several lovely old classics with a full line-up of films. If you’re having trouble choosing a flick, why not let the cinema dictate your choice?

The Local’s favourite cinema in town is the Kino International, a stunning specimen of East German Modernism on the famous Karl Marx Allee, complete with a glittering gold curtain.

Another gem, the pre-war Kino Babylon, received a national award for architectural preservation in 2002 after a meticulous two-year restoration, and has the added benefit of being in the heart of the central Mitte district.

There’s also the chic Cinema Paris, lovingly maintained since opened in 1950 in the then French-occupied zone of Charlottenburg at Kurfürstendamm 211.

Construction of the Delphi Filmpalast began in 1947 out of a ruined dance hall and still has that special shabby black-and-white charm.

Get tech savvy:

For the second year in a row, the Berlinale is offering a mobile website at m.berlinale.de for use on smart phones and mobile phones. The new feature allows visitors quick access to information on programmes and venues.

Language considerations:

This is your big chance to avoid suffering through the German dubbing that the Teutons still insist upon. Every film at the Berlinale runs in its original language with English subtitles. For non-German speakers interested in keeping up with German cinema, this is a special opportunity to see (and understand) the films all of your friends will be raving about once they’re released to the general public.

Be flexible:

When surrounded by film hipsters who take themselves a bit too seriously, waiting in long lines for tickets you might not get, it helps to keep things in perspective. Film festivals are supposed to be about fun and discovery, so if you don’t get tickets to that premiere you’re dying to see, just pick something else. It could be the best film you’ve ever seen, and if not, you’ll have a good story to tell.

For members

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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