Cultural Panorama
The remarkable film sequences will leave a lasting impression on cinema audiences: at a dizzying height above the rooftops of Paris, Hugo Cabret clings to the hand of the huge railway clock. And: a small boy turns from man to machine as he transforms himself into a robot. “Hugo Cabret”, the latest work by Hollywood star director Martin Scorsese, is a veritable cinematic adventure, brilliantly produced in 3D.
Academy Awards ceremony 2012
In its ten-day run the 62nd Berlinale (February 9 to 19, 2012) sold more than 300,000 tickets and screened almost 400 films. The closing highlights of the international film festival were a day for the audience as well as the grand gala and award ceremony at the Berlinale Filmpalast which was attended by many international film stars. There were 18 films in this year’s competition for the Golden and Silver Bears.
Berlinale 2012
Germany 2012: four events in a tour of discovery
Frederick the Great’s 300th birthday
Rediscover “Old Fritz”, the great Prussian king. With 2012 marking the 300th anniversary of his birth, the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg is paying tribute to a king with a risk-loving character.
Germany 2012
The Kleist Memorial Year 2011 was officially opened on 4 March in the Kleist’s native city of Frankfurt/Oder under the patronage of Federal President Christian Wulff. It featured exhibitions, film and theatrical productions, concerts and reading contests paying tribute to Heinrich von Kleist’s work. One of the main cities hosting events, besides Frankfurt/Oder, was the Spree metropolis Berlin, where Kleist took his own life on 21 November 1811.
Heinrich von Kleist Memorial Year 2011
At the beginning of August, when the blue carpet with the yellow stars is rolled out in front of the Konzerthaus at Gendarmenmarkt in Berlin, it’s time for the start of a special concert event.
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This is a special year for the Bayreuth Festival. The Festival, featuring the music of Richard Wagner, will celebrate its 100th anniversary.
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Reggae from Jamaica, calypso music from Trinidad & Tobago, ska and salsa from Cuba: this year the strains of Afro-Caribbean music will be echoing at the Mainwiesen in Würzburg on the first weekend of June.
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A big surprise at the German Film Awards 2011: the film “Vincent will Meer” (Vincent Wants to Sea) and actor Florian David Fitz are the big winners of the most prestigious and most highly endowed award for German films, worth 2.8 million euros. The coveted “Golden Lola” for the best film went to the road movie by director Ralf Huettner at the 61st award ceremony on April 8 in Berlin. The tragicomedy centres on Vincent, who suffers from Tourette’s syndrome. He and two other patients escape from a psychiatric clinic with the aim of reaching the sea in Italy.
German Film Awards 2011
100,000 books, more than 2,000 publishers from 44 countries, many international writers and Europe’s largest reading festival: the Book Fair is opening its doors in Leipzig on March 15, 2012. The four-day fair is the first major book-trade meeting of the year and a forum for new springtime publications. During the fair the city is expecting around 160,000 visitors. Literature from Eastern Europe, for which the Leipzig Book Fair is a traditionally renowned showcase, will again be a key focus in 2012.
Leipzig Book Fair
Hollywood star Liam Neeson takes a spectacular dip: during action shots for his latest thriller “Unknown”, which is set in Berlin and opens at German cinemas in March, the famous actor took the plunge at Babelsberg film studios – in 500,000 litres of water. Germany’s largest water tank for filming complex water scenes provided the setting as the taxi carrying Neeson plummeted from a Berlin bridge into the River Spree.
German Dream Factory
Great international recognition for two outstanding German musical institutions: the Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and the Rundfunkchor Berlin have won a Grammy in the classical music category at the 53rd Grammy Awards in Los Angeles (Feb. 13). They received the prize for their recording of the opera “L’Amour de Loin” headed by American conductor Kent Nagano (photograph)
Classical Grammy for Germany
The red carpet is rolled out and ready for the film stars. At the Biennale di Venezia, the world’s oldest film festival, 24 films are competing for this year’s prestigious Golden Lion award, including three productions from Germany. The most prominent German representative in the competition at the 67th Venice international Film Festival (September 1 - 11) is director Tom Tykwer.
"Golden Lion"
Three clay figures from Mexico beneath the celestial sky: Berlin has chosen this image to advertise the climax of its cultural summer, the 27th “Long Night of Museums”. On Saturday (28.8.) more than 100 museums in the German capital will be opening their exhibitions to the public from 6 pm to 2 am.
Long Night of Museums
Heinrich Böll is one of the outstanding figures of the Federal Republic of Germany, distinguished not only by his contributions to literature but also by his political engagement. He became well known to a wide public, both at home and abroad, with books like “Ansichten eines Clowns” (The Clown) and “Gruppenbild mit Dame” (Group Portrait With Lady). His books are prescribed reading at many German schools.
Heinrich Böll
Everyone is full of praise for Lena, including the Federal Chancellor: “She’s a wonderful expression of young Germany,” said Angela Merkel who congratulated the German winner of the Eurovision Song Contest. This praise from the top went well with the euphoria that engulfed Germany on Lena’s winning night in Oslo. Not only that, it infected a surprising number of music fans throughout Europe as well.
“Eurovision Song Contest”
Few have left such a lasting mark onthe literary landscape of the Federal Republic as Marcel Reich-Ranicki, one of Germany’s best-known and most influential literary critics. On 2 June, the German 'pope of literature' turns 90.
His appearances in the TV book discussion programme 'Das Literarische Quartett' (The Literary Quartet), which he headed for nearly 14 years (until 2001), remain etched in the memory of many Germans.
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In the year it was founded, Berlin’s Humboldt University had 256 students and 52 lecturers. It has since produced 29 Nobel Prize winners and is regarded as the “mother” of all modern universities. In 2010, the university is celebrating its 200th anniversary.
Humboldt University
The countdown to an exceptional world premier has started: on Saturday (May 8) the first performance of the “Amazonas Music Theatre” will begin at the 12th Munich Biennale, the international festival for new music theatre. The show focuses on a threatened environment – the Amazon Rainforest. Music theatre, media art, technology and science:
Amazonas Music Theatre
The 60th German Film Award has a deserving winner: Michael Haneke’s drama “The White Ribbon” swept the board with 10 Lolas at the gala presentation of the award totalling over 2.8 million euros, making it the most generously endowed cultural prize donated by the Federal Republic of Germany. The film about life in a North German village shortly before the outbreak of the First World War had already won the Golden Palm, the Golden Globe, the European Film Award and an Oscar nomination.
60th German Film Award
“Thinking can be fun” and “combining good sense with wit” are what co-founder Volker Ludwig associates with the GRIPS Theatre, which began in the 1960s as the “Theater für Kinder im Reichskabarett” (“Children’s Theatre in the Reich Cabaret").
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With its clear lines, brightness and transparency, the architecture of the new Museum Folkwang in Essen adds a brilliant highlight to the museum landscape of the Ruhr District at the beginning of the European Capital of Culture Ruhr 2010. In just two years British star architect David Chipperfield designed a new home for the internationally renowned art collection of one of the most important German museums, which is opening to visitors for the first time this weekend (30/31 January).
Folkwang Museum
The journalist and writer Kurt Tucholsky (1890-1935), who undoubtedly wielded one of the Weimar Republic’s most caustic pens as well as being an outstanding literary critic and an astute observer of contemporary political and social developments, would have turned 120 this year.
Kurt Tucholsky
This was the name chosen by a Berlin initiative which, over twenty years ago, sought to overcome the division of Germany’s capital, using “tales of courage” to unite people across borders. Fairy tale heroes, although they might feel small, are brave enough to fight for and win their freedom. This courageous initiative gave rise to the “Berlin Fairy Tale Festival”, the largest of its kind in the world, which since then has regarded itself as a forum for intercultural encounter.
“Tales of Courage”
