Die Tageszeitung 28.08.2007

Reinhard Wolff reports on a truly rare case. The head of the Swedish censorship authorities, Gunnel Arrbäck, has been keen to dissolve the under-occupied institution for a long time now, but having got nowhere, she has just handed in her resignation. "The last time the 'Biografbyra' cut something from a non-pornographic film was 11 years ago. That was in Scosese's 'Casino' where the Mafioso Nicky Santoro clamps the head of an enemy in a vice. Since then the censorship lists have become dull reading: test number 144531: 'The Bourne Ultimatum', cuts: 0; test number 144531: 'Stardust', cuts: 0, are the most recent entries. Have they found nothing since 1996 that fulfils the criteria legally termed as 'brutalising'? That's not the point, Arrbäck replies. 'The problem is that there is no research to prove that someone can be 'brutalised' by watching a film.'"


Frankfurter Rundschau 28.08.2007

Bernd Buder reports from the film festival in Sarajevo, which is featuring international films and southeast European cinema: "The festival organisers have never exactly defined the 'region' which is being featured here in Sarajevo. Consequently they need not operate with the pejoratively loaded term 'Balkan', they can avoid diplomatic difficulties and vary the territory from which films selected for competition come. This year Greece, Cyprus and Turkey are also included. Many film critics, who consider the festival a showcase of ex-Yugoslavian cinema, at first regretted the decision. Yet it paid off: from the films in official competition, three were from Turkey."


Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 28.08.2007

The philosopher Robert Spaemann vehemently attacks plans by the German government to relax laws for the protection of embryos: "If humans in early stages of their lives are not humans, and consequently have no human rights, then there is no need to justify 'using' them. Above all, however, there is no need for legal control. But if they are, as the Constitutional Court has found, bearers of the basic right to life, then the right to carry out research can never include the right to abolish the basic rights of others. The basic right to artistic freedom does not include the right to paint the walls of other people's houses; the right to freedom of research does not include the right to trespass or occupy other people's buildings for research purposes. Such inner limitations of basic rights hold all the more so for the use of human lives."


Neue Zürcher Zeitung 28.08.2007

Martina Sabra describes the phenomenon of the "caravans" in Morocco. They are being run by women's organisations who travel to slums or remote villages to raise awareness about causes such as girls' education. One activist Najat Ikhich (from the Ytto Foundation) describes the concept: "The caravans are not just a sightseeing tour, but a week of working and living together. The visitors share their knowledge about health, technology, law and their contacts. The families in the villages put up the guests for free in their homes and ensure they are well looked after. So everyone does what they can and we don't have to raise huge sums of money."


Der Tagesspiegel 28.08.2007

"The younger generation are not interested in comic relief," Christiane Peitz concludes after sitting through this year's Firststeps competition for German film school graduation films. "Father mother child. Petty bourgeois nightmares and dreams. Provincial claustrophobia. Big city nomads. Police officers dreaming of promotion, a call-centre operator, children in homes, city waifs and strays. The homeless model 'Valerie' (in Birgit Möller's film of the same name) is peniless and lives in the underground parking lot of the Hyatt Hotel. Look at the loneliness, the young are saying in the year of the great demography and family debates, just look how much pain the generations are causing each other."