Summer is practically here – time to rapidly take advantage of the good weather. There are many ways to enjoy the Summer daylight hours in the sun. Go for a swim, meet friends for an Aperitif or do some outdoor activities. But if you also want to spend the evenings catching some fresh air you should definitely visit an open air cinema and watch an awesome movie in these last summer weeks.
We would like to introduce you to a couple of open air cinemas, which not only convince with their cozy atmosphere, but also offer an interesting program. Read an introduction for the open air cinemas und their program after the jump.
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by Olga | Movies
“For me, Berlin isn’t a city, but a rhythm.” That is Sonja’s opinion on our beloved town. She is the protagonist of the new Berlin movie Fucking Berlin. Like so many others, she came here to forget the boredom from her hometown and experience something faster, more intense. She couldn’t foresee, how easy it is to loose yourself in this fast life. Suddenly the money for parties and drugs has run out and she finds herself naked in front of her laptop, working as a camgirl. Being a student and an emancipated sexworker becomes too much for her, soon.
How fast Berlin catches you is something that we all know. How quickly you run out of money and job options is also no secret, which is why often decisions are being made that would’ve sounded crazy just a short while ago. Without being moralizing, the movie shows just how easy you can experience every part of Berlin’s intensity.
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by Valerie | Movies
„She was just the way she was.“
A city like Berlin has its very own sagas. Every day, thousands of hearts are broken and hundreds of souls connect. The city presents the perfect scenery, serving as a stage for all the drama emerging in it.
Together with producers Fabian Gasmia and Henning Kamm film maker Erik Schmitt created an adorable short movie that poses the question: What defines the soul of a city? Schmitt answers it partly in his short film „Rhino Full Trottle“ with a classic love story, made in Berlin. He loves her, she needs to leave soon, he loves her anyway. Berlin takes up the role of the third protagonist here. With a striking love for details and powerful, little stop motion animations, the love displayed is not only between Vicky (played by Marleen Lohse) and Bruno (played by Tino Mewes) but mostly to Berlin. „Rhino Full Trottle“ is full of affection, charm and soul – just like the city itself can be. I feel like we’ve all been in the shoes of Bruno, secretly loving someone, but also in Vicky’s, unaware of the fact that someone is hurt by our own carelessness.
„She was just the way she was“, says Bruno and sums up the essence of his true love Vicky. And also Berlin. If you have 15 minutes of time on your hand, please make sure to watch the short movie below. You can turn on English subtitles in the settings in the bottom.
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by Yasmin | Movies, Videos
photo: Britta Thie, Translantics
Translantics is a new web series about a group of artists and creative people in Berlin, produced by Schirn Kunsthalle and ZDF in collaboration with ARTE Creative. It was created, written and directed by the artist Britta Thie, who also plays the main character BiBi in the show. The story is about her and her two best friends how they navigate their life and work in Berlin. They’re dealing with the fast-forward life of young ambitious artists who jump from situations of comfort with friends and lovers to awkward encounters with competing artists. Their relationships are continually re-networked and auto-updated. You can feel the loss of intimacy because „emotion, affect, and intelligence have become products on an already flooded market“…
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by Olga | TV
Victoria is the title of a brand new movie with Berlin’s nightlife as one of the leading roles. The film by Sebastian Schipper tells the story of Victoria, a Spanish girl visiting the city who meets a group of guys from Berlin in front of a club. What starts as a wild flirt with one of them and fun night slowly develops into a suspenseful and dangerous trip. The whole movie was shot in one take which creates a very authentic and unique style of the film that really sets it apart from the normal German cinema. No wonder the film won the silver bear of this year’s Berlinale for Best Camera Work.
This Thursday on June 11, 2015, Victoria has her theatrical release here in Berlin. Read on to see some images and the trailer and for your chance to win tickets for the film!
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by Frank | Movies
photo: Ilse Ruppert
One of the treasures of this year’s Berlinale was the documentary B-Movie: Lust & Sound in West-Berlin that captured the wild and crazy years of West-Berlin in the 80s before the wall came down. I know that we commonly always think that it was the East part of Germany that was behind the wall in the case of Berlin it was actually the West part that was walled-in like a prison. It must have been a strange feeling to be surrounded by the Soviet-led East Germany and I am not surprised that this led to a lot of chaos, craziness and rebellions of the youth culture. The 80s are known for its punk and rave eras and you can still feel the influences of that in fashion and music nowadays. It’s funny when the older generations comment the 80s by saying: Oh, you remember the 80s? Than apparently you haven’t been there… I was still so young back than and too far away from Berlin deep inside East Germany that I didn’t catch anything of it. But thanks to the film B-Movie by Jörg A.Hoppe, Klaus Maeck and Heiko Lange I have a chance to relive it through a lot of footage from the time, a lot of it previously unreleased.
The film follows British musician, actor and author Mark Reeder as he moves to Berlin to discover the creative underground scene of the strange city. The film is like a collage of images from the nightlife, the street riots, the art and music scene – there is definitely a lot of sex, drugs and rock’n roll involved. We encounter a young Nick Cave as he dips into the city, we meet Westbam before the Loveparade and many more legendary characters that started their careers in this period of political instability. It was a world that was undergoing drastic changes which made everything more extreme and I think this is what made the 80s so significant in the history of Berlin. Watch the trailer after the jump and I think you will understand what I am talking about…
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by Frank | Movies
photo by Ali Ghandtschi
It’s nearly Berlinale time and the city is buzzing with excitement.
The festival will show more than 400 films and is expecting close to half a million visits to the screenings taking place across the city. The program is already online and the first tickets have gone on sale. But how is one expected to make sense of the huge selection and find films one actually will enjoy?
Of course there are plenty of articles with recommendations that can give you an idea. Those are usually films that were raved about at Sundance, films that have been anticipated highly, films from famous directors, with ingenious actors or winners from a few years back. However you never know if that simply means that tickets will sell out immediately or if those films are actually down your alley ( I’m thinking back to that horrific Monuments Men for example). And it’s good to keep in mind that writers who do recommend movies before they’ve premiered often haven’t seen the films either, so really it’s just a lucky guess based on what they know from press releases and participants of the project.
Therefore we recommend you to also make your own choices! Read our little guide on how to select the right films for your Berlinale visit …
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by Lia | Events, Movies
Those of you who understand German have surely at one point in their Berlin life laughed out loud about one of the hilarious notes from Notes of Berlin that normally spread like a wildfire on Facebook. If you haven’t heard of it yet, Notes of Berlin is a collection of the funniest notes that people hang somewhere in public to address their noisy neighbors, ignorant customers, bike thieves, subway flirts and other fellow citizens. It’s an interesting reflection of the sass and wit of Berliners, but also of their anger, rudeness and sometimes their bad grammar.
Some of the notes have more than just a complaint behind them, but a whole story attached to it that I very often wonder how it might continue once the person the note is addressed to actually reads it. I think quite a few fans of the site might feel like that and I think it’s this thought that triggered the idea of turning the website into a movie. After so many other blogs turned their websites into books, this one might actually be the first one that comes out as a movie. But how does that work? The team behind the film has selected some of the most interesting notes and wrote stories around them that will be put together like puzzle pieces. The result is going to be one hell of an anthology film with the craziest Berliners in it and I am very sure it will be at least as funny as the blog.
Right now a film lab has been started where people can discuss the notes and submit new ones and a big casting is going on to find the people who will play in the film. They can be actors, but also non-actors. And in typical Notes of Berlin style the casting calls are hung around the city as notes. After the jump you can see some of them, or maybe you will also find them somewhere in your neighborhood? Enjoy some of the notes after the jump.
UPDATE: On May 16th 2015 Notes of Berlin is throwing a fundraiser party for the movie at Klunkerkranich starting at 15h.
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by Frank | Movies
Considering that Berlin is such a hyped city I’m actually quite surprised that there are not more movie projects about it. With Ecke Weserstraße we already got a new series dedicated to our city exploring the life of a group of young people living in Kreuzkölln trying to make it here. But the brand new Desire Will Set You Free could potentially become the next big Berlin movie. With a quick glance at the trailer we get to see all the typical ingredients that already made Berlin Calling such a big success: Nightlife, romance, sex, drugs and a little bit of rebellious behavior, all of that mixed with some queerness and star power by Nina Hagen and Peaches. My favorite scene so far however is the one with the old man sitting in the cupcake shop of my friend Dawn talking about what old people like to see – a nice contrast to the otherwise mostly hedonistic scenes.
Director Yony Leyser says that his film is about contemporary life in Berlin and while some viewers might be sceptical that this film once again seems to reduce Berlin to sex, drugs and parties, I remain quite curious about what this particular life will look like. I think between the lines it’s going to be about more than just sweat and dancing. While the makers are currently still seeking financial support for the postproduction the final film is scheduled for a release in Fall or Winter of this year. Get a preview after the jump.
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by Frank | Movies
„Sell me this pen!“ challenges Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) the audience of his sales seminar. Empty faces look back at him and into the audience in the cinema. They all want to become rich and lead the life Belfort once had. The audience seems hopeful and reflects the cinema’s audience, who knows the correct answer to the challenge after three hours of entertaining cinema. But what remains is the question if we even want to know this answer…
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by Lia | Movies
