Dramaturgie im zeitgenössischen Tanz ist ? positiv gemeint ? ein heißes Eisen. Idealerweise sind Dramaturginnen und Dramaturgen während der Erarbeitung eines Stücks die besten Freunde der Choreografen. more
Director Romuald Karmakar has made a film which reveals the Islamist mindset. Based on the lessons delivered by Imam Mohammed Fazazi, whose mosque in Hamburg was visited by the 9/11 pilots, it stretches for over two hours and provides almost nothing for the eye. Precisely this, says Eckhard Fuhr, makes it so effective.
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"Yella", the new film by director Christian Petzold, hits the screens in Germany today. He talks to Christiane Peitz about working with actress Nina Hoss, abandoning Hitchcock, and his personal bugbear, the amphibian film.
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A hotel room in Munich, June 1976. Andre Müller looks back on a memorable talk with film and stage director Ingmar Bergman about human destructiveness, the Lord above or lack thereof, and making the world a microscopically better place.
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No other obituary of Ingmar Bergman or Michelangelo Antonioni makes it as clear how necessary they were - and how bitterly we will miss them - as The New York Times'. By Arno Widmann
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Rainer Werner Fassbinder died 25 years ago. His ex-wife, the actress and chanteuse Ingrid Caven, is outraged at the way the Fassbinder legacy is being misrepresented. She talks to Katja Nicodemus about the cult of genius, lies and the Utopian days of great cinema.
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Why did no one think of it before? A film festival showing only the best films around. Cannes director Thierry Fremaux has done just that - much to the approval of Daniel Kothenschulte, who singles out the new films by Fatih Akin and Quentin Tarantino as his favourites.
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In its sixth year under Dieter Kosslick, the Berlinale has flung itself into the breach for boredom, lack of inspiration and conventionality. There were a handful of creditable, daring, self-assured films. Only these will be mentioned here. By Ekkehard Knörer. All the bears at a glance here.
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In Jacques Rivette's Competition film "Don't Touch the Axe", Jeanne Balibar and Guillaume Depardieu besiege themselves in an exquisitely wrought and rapier sharp love battle. And in the claustrophobic "Brand Upon the Brain", Guy Maddin serves up a huge portion of brain nectar.
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Zhang Lu's "Desert Dream" follows life in a yurt in the wide, empty expanses of the Mongolian steppes, punctuated only by North Korean folk songs. In "Celebration" Olivier Meyrou visits the spectral fashion house of Yves Saint Laurent. And Jack Snyder's "300", the film of Frank Miller's comic, is not the world's worst film, but it's damn close.
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Christian Petzold's ghostly "Yella" is marked by ruptures, and corner-of-the-mouth minimalism. "The Lark House" by the Taviani brothers shows the Turkish genocide of the Armenians with some beatifully composed torture scenes. Frederick Wiseman's "State Legislature" documents the nuts and bolts of American politics. And Hal Hartley's "Fay Grim" has a plot driven to the height of absurdity.
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With "The Witnesses," Andre Techine consolidates his reputation as a master of mitigation. In conservative Clint's "Letter's from Iwo Jima", there is much militarily senseless, politically objectionable, but highly heroic dying for the fatherland. And Angela Schanelec's "Afternoon" shows the unbearable weight of being.
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In Stefan Ruzowitzky's "The Counterfeiters", concentration camp victims are set to work making fake money for the Nazis. Robert de Niro's "The Good Shepherd" shows a block of ice created by the Cold War. Park Chan-wook's "I'm a Cyborg, but that's OK" inquires with refreshing naivity into the meaning of life. And Rudolphe Marconi shows Karl Largerfeld and his laissez-faire attitude towards status, privilege and luck.
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Pascal Ferran's "Lady Chatterley" has kept cheap thrills and overbearing symbolism at an arm's length. It is self-assured, unpretentious and observant. "This Filthy World" by Jeff Garlin reveals filmmaker John Waters as an exquisitely funny stand-up comedian. And in Hong Sangsoo's "Woman on the Beach," true faces emerge from behind the booze.
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The Berlinale opens tonight with Olivier Dahan's film "La vie en rose". The programme is the usual hotchpotch we have come to expect from director Dieter Kosslick. Ekkehard Knörer guides us through the rather populist selection of the Competition and the overwhelming variety that awaits film fans in the Panorama and Forum sections.
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The Berlinale opened with Olivier Dahan's film "La vie en Rose", a confrontational Piaf portrait replete with smeared make-up, champagne and morphine, flunkies and fans, misery and deity. Altogether much more exciting than the "The Good German" by Steven Soderbergh which fell flat on its faux forties face.
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