Cocktail & Movie 4 – Celebrating the Love Dramas and Decadence of the Fin de Siècle

Cocktail & Movie 4 – Celebrating the Love Dramas and Decadence of the Fin de Siècle

Once a year, the Staatsoper and iHeartBerlin invite readers and music enthusiast to the beautiful Apollosaal. For one night, the opera’s opulent marble reception hall takes on a dual role: a cinema and a cocktail bar. Related to the Opera season’s musical lineup, we hand-pick a film and craft a cocktail, aiming to stir the audience’s curiosity about a particular opera or musical piece. This year’s movie and drink by Zubrowka was all about the atmosphere and decadence of the start of the 20th century. Read on to learn more about it and see some impressions from this evening. 

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The Soura Film Festival in Berlin: Shining A Light on Queer Cinema from S.W.A.N.A.

The Soura Film Festival in Berlin: Shining A Light on Queer Cinema from S.W.A.N.A.

photo: Outsiders, directed by Hannah Cauhépé. 

Berlin is known around the world for its big movie festival Berlinale, but there are other great initiatives that promote less mainstream movies and amplify important voices. One of such events is the Soura Film Festival, the third edition of which will happen at the end of this month. Taking place at Oyoun from the 21st until the 24th of October, Soura Film Festival presents a daring selection of films by queer artists from the SWANA (South West Asia & North Africa) region.

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Clubkultur: The New Nightlife Documentary Screening in Berlin Clubs

Clubkultur: The New Nightlife Documentary Screening in Berlin Clubs

If we can’t dance in Berlin clubs, at least we can watch a documentary about clubbing there, right? With the corona regulations operating a club has become really difficult and this is threatening the one thing that has put Berlin on the map worldwide in the last couple of decades. While everything is back open again after the endless lockdown, clubs are still the one type of place that is still not allowed to open. It’s not that that is not understandable – but it doesn’t make it any better or fair for the people behind it.

The new documentary Clubkultur by filmmakers Leonie Gerner and Andrea Schumacher for Hauptstadt.tv shines a light on the importance of the Berlin club scene with various interviews with club owners, nightlife artists, DJs, and musicians, but also politicians and the Berlin Clubcommission. We also get to see a lot of footage from some wild Berlin nights that make us super nostalgic and that feel like they are from a distant time decades in the past.

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Boy Meets Boy: A New Movie Taking Us Back to A Light-Hearted Pre-Pandemic Berlin

Boy Meets Boy: A New Movie Taking Us Back to A Light-Hearted Pre-Pandemic Berlin

A new trailer for the highly anticipated queer movie Boy Meets Boy has been released before the film’s world premiere at BFI Flare: London LGBTQI+ Film Festival this month. Directed by Daniel Sánchez López, we embark on a love story that sparkles between two guys on a dance floor and turns into a one-day-adventure on the streets of Berlin. 

“The contrasts in their lives and values force each one to confront their own truths. Boy Meets Boy is a feature-length mumblecore about the journey of a brief encounter: the mark left by a fleeting moment of joy.”, the official synopsis says.

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Futur Drei – Clashing Realities like a Sassy Queer POC Fantasy

Futur Drei – Clashing Realities like a Sassy Queer POC Fantasy

Have you ever come out of the cinema and felt like the movie is still going on in your head? Last Saturday coming out of Futur Drei and riding my bike with my friends trough Kreuzberg, I envisioned how my own life had instantly become part of a movie. Let me tell you why. 

“Futur Drei – No Hard Feelings” tells the story of Parvis, a young gay man living in Hildesheim with his parents who immigrated from Iran to Germany before he was born. While leading a life without worries, he is bored out by partying and fucking random dudes and is missing some sort of direction or passion or commitment. 

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Behind the Tree: The New Streaming Platform from Berlin is like Netflix for Arthouse Movies

Behind the Tree: The New Streaming Platform from Berlin is like Netflix for Arthouse Movies

photo: The Invisible Frame. 

If you have the impression that you’ve already watched the entirety of Netflix three times since the first Corona lockdown, we have exciting news for you! Behind the Tree is a new streaming platform made in Berlin with arthouse movies and short films.

The website offers a variety of independent movie genres, including documentaries, horrors, and animes. Many of the films are in German, but most have English subtitles, so it can also be a great way to get some language practice going. The website features some international productions as well, like the movie “The Invisible Frame”, in which Tilda Swinton explores Berlin’s recent history.

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There Are No Orange Trees in Berlin – A Movie by Kida Ramadan

There Are No Orange Trees in Berlin – A Movie by Kida Ramadan

photo: Tim Rosenbohm, Port au Prince Pictures. 

At iHeartBerlin, we like to showcase different perspectives on the city, proving that Berlin truly is a canvas for all different kinds of stories. “In Berlin wächst kein Orangenbaum”, Kida Ramadan’s directorial debut, is a film that features the streets of Kreuzberg in a way which goes beyond the usual imagery of late-night snacks and parties.

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Visionär Film Festival: Visionary Film Debuts from Around the World in Berlin

Visionär Film Festival: Visionary Film Debuts from Around the World in Berlin

Dear film lovers,
Have you spent the whole summer re-watching Parasite in every language and overdosed on Little Women in every Freiluftkino in town? (sidenote: yes, we also miss the Greta Gerwig from Lady Bird) Let’s not even talk about your unhappy relationship with your brand-new video on demand platform (#sosadsohorny). We know you are missing the plush velvet of the cinema seat and are longing for the romantic darkness of the theater and the mystical energy wrapped up in it. You are like us: yearning for a new type film event like the Porn Film Festival, Berlin Feminist Film Week, The Xposed International Queer Film Festival, Woche der Kritik and of course the gold standard, Berlinale.

Film freaks, we have something that is just for you: the fourth edition of the Visionär Film Festival. Originally slated to begin in April (go home Ms. Corona), the festival will take place (in person!) from September 21st to 28th. VFF showcases new talents, offering a selection of filmmakers from around the world who prove to be daring, original, and visionary in their debut full-length films. Because there are only so many hours in the day, here is a guide to the must-see films:

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Chasing Paper Birds: A Nostalgic Journey into the Last Decade of Friedrichshain

Chasing Paper Birds: A Nostalgic Journey into the Last Decade of Friedrichshain

The Movie Chasing Paper Birds premieres on the 17th of September and is going to trigger a nostalgic feeling in many of us. It is a film that gives a raw and beautiful insight into Berlin’s soul in the decade of the 2010s, with the focus on Friedrichshain and all the different characters that made this Kiez so special.

As a former director of music videos and image films, Mariana Jukica has made it possible to perceive Berlin’s spirit and captured every spark. She awakens memories of a lived madness, in a time before touristy hooligans took over the city.

The movie is narrated from three perspectives. Mia, Keks and Ian, who are in their late twenties to early thirties, are all on the run from reality and on the hunt for their own personal happiness.

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Berlin, Berlin: The Cult TV Show and New Movie is Out On Netflix Now

Berlin, Berlin: The Cult TV Show and New Movie is Out On Netflix Now

Cheeky, charming and full on 2000s – the German cult series “Berlin, Berlin” returns to our screens! Who knows and loved it? The high school graduate Lolle and her clumsy life and love adventures. For some, the opening credits of the 2000 cult series alone will awaken childhood memories: the wild tracking shots throughout Berlin, the cheesy but awfully catchy soundtrack and the well captured big city feeling. Between 2002 and 2005, the series was shown on the public broadcaster ARD and thrilled an audience of millions for over 4 seasons.

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