Christmas Eve at the Bode

If you've had your fill of Christmas Markets and sloshing around banks of snow to get your mitts around some Glühwein or Bratwurst, you're probably ready for a change of pace on Christmas Eve.

This is the best day on which to visit one of Berlin's museums, a few of which -- like the Bode Museum at the Museum Island -- are open till 2 p.m. Finally, you will have the beautiful art and opulent interior spaces all to yourself. There couldn't be a better time than the morning of Christmas Eve to take in the Bode Museum's collection of Byzantine art, leaving the last-minute shoppers and madding crowd far behind.

photo: Gunnar Bach Pedersen/Wikimedia Commons

After that, you have time to stroll down Oranienburgerstrasse and later, to stop by the Sophienkirche, which has a live manger scene, beginning at 4.30 p.m., and a sacred music program at 6 p.m.

Merry Christmas!

See Spiegel Online's photo gallery on the Bode Museum here.

The Bode Museum is at the Musuem Island, on Am Kupfergraben 1. The nearest subway is S and U Friedrichstr. or Bus 100 or 200 (stop: Staatsoper).

The Sophienkirche is at Hackescher Markt, on Große Hamburgerstr. 29. The nearest subway is U Weinmeisterstr.

Film Festival Without Red Carpets

Ever since he saw the comedy "Liebesgrüße vom Wörthersee " at age seventeen, Bernhard Karl was hooked on films. His early career years were spent as theater director in München, but his dream was to work for one of the major film festivals. He applied to the Berlinale but was turned down. "Why don't you create your own film festival?" asked one of his friends. That was the beginning of "Around the World in 14 Films," the film festival without red carpets.


Bernhard Karl is the founder of "Around the World in 14 Films," now taking place at the Kino Babylon in its fifth edition. Each year, Karl travels to ten festivals in 14 world regions, from Locarno to Toronto, from Cannes to Venice. He sees some 5000 films a year. Then he brings home a selection of his favorites for the broad public, mere unaccredited mortals who have no access to the top festivals in exotic locations.

This festival is like no other. Run on a shoestring budget, with help from supporters, sponsors and friends, its administrative team consists of Karl and his laptop. The screenings include no glamour, no popping flashbulbs, no red carpets. Just great films and avid cineasts.

Scene from "Curling," directed by Denis Côté (Canada)

Actually, avid and eternally grateful cineasts -- because many of these films will never make it to German movie houses. "The only films that are successful commercially, " sighs Karl, "are comedies or films about Hitler." That's exactly why "Around the World in 14 Films" fills a niche. It brings home some of the best films shown in world festivals and, at the same time, gives producers a brilliant opportunity to find a public for box-office non-starters.

One of the most interesting films this year (and Karl's personal favorite) is "Autobiografia Lui Nicolae Ceausescu, " a bio pic about the Romanian dictator. Director Andrei Ujica went through 1000 hours of footage to find material for this gem of a film.



Temperatures are sub-zero and the Berlinale isn't till February. See you at the Babylon this weekend?

"Around the World in 14 Films" runs from Friday, November 26 to Saturday, December 4 at Kino Babylon, Rosa-Luxemburg Strasse 30 (U Rosa-Luxemburg Platz). 
The next screening of "Autobiografia Lui Nicolae Ceausescu, " is on Saturday, December 4, at 16:00.
For more details go to the Festival website.

Most Interesting Person

Who is the most interesting person you know? Stuart Holt, British photographer, has been traveling to some of the world's metropolitan cities, asking this question. 

Each person he films sends him to somebody he or she finds most interesting, who then becomes the next stop on Holt's filmic journey. This domino reaction continues till, finally, Holt has created what he calls a trail -- a linked sequence of short films, featuring ordinary people who talk about their passions, convictions and personal heroes. Each "most interesting person" also chooses the location for the conversation. Long Trail Film Making, says Holt, is a great way to get "behind the skin" of a throbbing metropolis.

Stuart Holt started the project in London, continuing on to New York, Los Angeles, Sao Paulo and Tel Aviv. For the past year he has been in Berlin, and recently, he presented his series of short films in the Ballhaus Ost. The Berlin trails -- four in all -- are fascinating portraits of the people behind the creative energy of this city. Berlin's Trail Four, for instance, begins with Jetta Miller, film producer and director, who talks to Holt in her apartment in Berlin Mitte.

From Jetta Miller, the trail moves on to Rebecca Bach, video and performance artist. Bach chooses the Plänterwald as the environment in which to talk about her video project, "Wo sind Sie überhaupt?", an exploration of Berlin on foot along a single axis that cuts through the city. Bach's personal hero is Thorsten Schmitz, journalist for the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Schmitz talks quietly about reporting in conflict zones while he walks through the Pfaueninsel, a natural surrounding which, in his words, allows you to listen to silence and simply "be."



Schmitz's most interesting person is Edda Kruse Rosset, student, who talks to us from the place that is most significant for her: the "magic rooftops" above her house in Kreuzberg, one of the empty buildings that were occupied by squatters in the 1980s. Rosset points us to Beanne da Costa, also a student. Eighteen-year-old da Costa takes us through the park in Friedrichshain, and in the sun-dappled light slanting through trees, she shares with us her conviction of the power of music. In this delightful clip, she sings, narrates and dissolves into peals of laughter whenever she cannot take herself too seriously.



I asked Holt if the Berlin sequence was different from the others. Very much so, said Holt. The most interesting persons in London or Los Angeles, for instance, tended to be those who could further the careers of others.  The choices of Berliners were more honest, varied and unpredictable. This city is a cultural ground zero, said Holt, which makes the Berlin stories that much richer.

Holt's sequences of three-minute-long portraits are spot on: a snapshot of Berlin 2010. Take a look at this "under the skin" perspective of the city on the Most Interesting Person website. And keep an eye open just in case this talented photographer/filmmaker happens to be following a trail in your city!

Discovery: Degenerate Art Under Rubble

They have spent more time under rubble than in a museum -- eleven sculptures that were confiscated as "degenerate art" from museums across Germany by the Nazi propaganda action. 


The early-twentieth-century sculptures were part of a traveling exhibition of degenerate art in 1937, shown to the public as examples of art that disgraced the national spirit. They were returned to the Nazi Propaganda Ministry in 1941, then disappeared without a trace -- believed to be destroyed, sold or stolen.


"Small Miracle"
Berlin's mayor, Klaus Wowereit, called their discovery a "small miracle." Recently, construction work for the U5 subway line opposite Berlin's City Hall had turned up objects from the city's medieval past, including remnants of the original city hall from 1290. This brought archaeologists to the site.

To their surprise, they made an even bigger discovery: eleven delicate sculptures in bronze and terracotta, still bearing traces of fire bombing and destruction, buried deep within the rubble of a bombed-out cellar on Königstrasse 50.

Photo: Reuters

How Did They Get There?

Nobody knows for sure, but we do know that Königstrasse was located in a bustling city center in pre-war Berlin, and one of the offices in Number 50 belonged to a public accountant, Erhard Oewerdieck, and his wife Charlotte, who offered protection to Jewish intellectual friends during the Nazi persecution. They helped several flee the country, storing for them their collections of books and correspondence. Were these sculptures also part of a persecuted friend's collection?   

Photo: AFP

Quiet Beauty in Terracotta

The fragment of the expressionist figure "Schwangere"("Pregnant Woman," 1918) by Emy Roeder is one of the most moving artworks recovered from the rubble.  The figure is heart-rendingly fragile, the full lips and elongated cheekbones still bearing the blackened marks of fire destruction. But at the same time, we see strength and endurance in her downward gaze and the way she seems to concentrate on her inner self.  

For Berlin's "small miracle" there could be no better exhibition space than Berlin's Neues Museum, itself a  building that combines the enduring quality of architectural beauty with the deep scars of war and destruction.        

Ten of the eleven sculptures are on display at the Neues Museum,  located on the Museum Island, Bodestraße 3, 10178 Berlin. Public transportation options include: S-Bahn to Hackescher Markt, tram M4, M5, M6 to Hackescher Markt, Bus 100, 200 to Lustgarten. 

The museum is open from 10:00 am to 6 pm, Monday to Wednesday, and 10 am to 8 pm, Thursday to Sunday. Admission is 10 EUR. Avoid queues by purchasing a"time-slot ticket" in advance.          

Das Kochhaus: Tante Emma with a Twist

A new kind of grocery store opened last month in Berlin-Schöneberg -- a store that makes you feel you are walking into a Nigella Lawson cookbook.

That's exactly the experience that Ramin Goo, the under-30 founder of Das Kochhaus, wants you to have (except, perhaps, for the Nigella Lawson bit).

Guess Who's Making Dinner
Goo knows from personal experience the frustration of returning home from work (he was a management consultant at McKinsey) and trying to make an inspired menu from weary-looking veggies at the back of the fridge. Neither did he feel like trawling through supermarket aisles, filling a grocery cart with random items. People needed an alternative, he decided. And it wasn't take-out.

The joy of cooking at home, says Goo, begins with the pleasure of shopping for food. That's why his store is not organized according to categories of produce but instead visualizes the process of reading (and being inspired by) an illustrated cookbook.

photo: courtesy, Das Kochhaus

Shopping by Storyboards
Each week, Goo and his team create recipes that combine seasonal freshness, creativity and simple elegance. Then they stock the store for that week according to the recipes.

photo: courtesy, Das Kochhaus

The aesthetic of the store is Zen-like. There are 20 tables and above each, a display poster in blackboard style, illustrating a recipe.  The ingredients are on the table, carefully measured for two, four or six, arranged as beautifully and symmetrically as in a Japanese bento box.

photo: courtesy, Das Kochhaus

The store itself is laid out as a kind of dinner storyboard. You move from the appetizer tables to the salad variations, on to the entrees, and finally, the dessert. Recommended wines are on each table, as are kitchen tools called for by a specific recipe: a nutmeg grater here, a garlic press there. No detail has been overlooked.

A New Kind of Tante Emma
When Goo first broached the idea to investors, it was met with skepticism. A start-up project with fruits and vegetables instead of the internet? Not exactly cutting-edge.

But Goo's idea has caught on. While the average supermarket has about 15,000 items, Das Kochhaus has around 500. On the one hand, it is a throwback to the Tante Emma Laden of the 1970s (pre-supermarket), the little family-run shop where you could stock up on kitchen, pantry and domestic needs in one stop. On the other, Das Kochhaus fast-forwards Tante Emma into the twenty-first century.

Personally, I prefer the chaotic shopping you tend to do in the weekly farmers' markets (where you pick up two kilos of porcini mushrooms, then concoct recipes around the reckless purchase), and I warm to the kitchen that never runs out of cinnamon or turmeric rather than one that sports tidy packages of three red chillies, two stalks of parsley and one clove of garlic. But then, that's just me.

Das Kochhaus was bustling with customers yesterday. Couples stood in front of the tables, discussing dinner possibilities. Should it be the pasta with shiitake mushrooms and diced ham in a rosemary sauce this evening, or would they dare to try the lentil and lychee curry?

Goo's team, creators of the world's first walk-in cookbook,  is already thinking of introducing cooking classes and expanding into other parts of Berlin and other cities in Germany.


For more information, photos, videos, press clippings (Das Kochhaus has extensive local, national and international press coverage) and the week's recipes, go to www.kochhaus.de. Recipe ingredients cost anywhere from 2,70 EUR per person to 9,50 EUR per person, and the package includes a recipe leaflet to take home. 


Das Kochhaus is open Mondays to Fridays, from 10:00 am to 09:00 pm, and on Saturdays from 09:00 am to 08:00 pm. It is located at Akazienstrasse 1 in Berlin-Schöneberg, at the corner of Akazienstrasse and Hauptstrasse. The nearest U-Bahn station in U Eisenachstr. (U7). Buses M48 and M85 have stops right outside the entrance.

Bach in Schöneberg, Free Jazz in Friedrichshain

Piano City Berlin is on this weekend, a music festival that takes place in living rooms rather than in concert halls. The festival is an initiative of Radialsystem V, the cultural centre that calls itself "a new space for the arts in Berlin," and it invites listeners to piano concerts in private homes. The performers are not concert pianists. They just might be your neighbors.


It all began with a concert at the German-Finnish Society in Turku in southwestern Finland, in April 2009. After the concert, pianist Andreas Kern  met up with three other guest performers in a cafe. They talked about the loneliness of the professional pianist. Unlike musicians in an ensemble or an orchestra, the pianist spends hours alone with his instrument. But what if you made the experience less solitary, if only for a day -- or a weekend?

There must be several hundreds of pianists in Berlin who had something to offer an audience, Kern thought  -- students at the music conservatories such as the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler or the Universität der Künste, those who taught music or played for pleasure.  He was right. When he created a website inviting Berliners to send in videos of their performance and their reasons for wanting to be part of Piano City, he got hundreds of responses from professionals, amateurs, and shades of in-between -- Berliners from all walks of life, all ages, playing everything from classical to standard and free jazz to original compositions. They had one thing in common: they were passionate about the piano.

photo: Kitty Kleist-Heinrich

Sophia Grevesmühl, music professional who studied at the Universität der Künste, was one of the first to send in her video to Kern's web site, and this weekend she will be performing Brahms in her Kreuzberg apartment, crammed with her favorite books and ficus house plants. Her sofa and kitchen chairs will be the "concert hall," and she plans to add a homey touch with tea and cookies. Sophia likes the idea of playing for people she has never seen before and being able to chat with them later. What brings them to my concert of all those featured in the program, she wants to know.

If you cringe at the thought of hearing one more amateur rendition of Bach's Prelude in C, this might not be for you. But if you like the idea of getting to know ordinary Berliners, some of whom have extraordinary talent, and traipsing through their living rooms (the smallest takes no more than eight guests) while listening to Prokofiev and free jazz, the weekend holds promise.

Piano City Berlin features 70 Berlin pianists and takes place on Saturday, October 23 and Sunday, October 24. Tickets (5.35 EUR) are available only at the festival website at www.pianocity-berlin.com
where you can also view videos of the pianists. The exact address is available only after you make the purchase (although the listing does specify the city district).


Piano City is followed by Musik in den Häusern der Stadt (Music in City Homes), which takes place all over Germany, from November 2 to 7, and features a range of instruments. There will be 19 concerts in Berlin. See www.kunstsalon.de for more information.

Art not just in Galleries

The Art Forum Berlin is on this weekend: the fifteenth edition of the international art show, featuring contemporary painting, sculpture, photography, video art and installations from 130 galleries from around the world. And, as so often in Berlin, the international event is accompanied by local satellite events. This weekend, there are at least three.


The Big Draw
The inspiration for the Big Draw festival comes from the Campaign for Drawing, a charity organization in England, whose ambition is to get people to lose their inhibitions about picking up a drawing pencil and to use it as a tool for thought, creativity and social engagement.

The first Big Draw in Berlin was held in 2009, during the Long Night of the Museums. This year, festival director Anna Chrusciel has gone a step further, transforming more public spaces into art studios for all -- including the Deutsche Bank's atrium off Unter den Linden and the Grüner Salon at Rosa-Luxemberg Platz. Berliners of all ages can be seen in galleries, cafes, U-Bahn stations, even the Botanical Gardens, recklessly wielding sketching pencils, felt pens, highlighter markers, post-it notes, clay, scissors and glue.

Artists lead workshops where you can experiment with working on an animated film, comic strip or poster ad. Fun!






A Taste of Grunge

The Score .03 urban art fair is on all weekend, next to the U-Bahn Gleisdreieck. Its profile piqued my curiosity -- a combination of live painting, street art and graffiti. Berlin has some great street art, if you know where to look for it -- or know people who do --  (my best guides have been a couple of intrepid freshmen students), but this festival tries too hard to be edgy to be genuinely interesting. Not recommended if you don't lean toward techno music and grunge appeal.

Art in the Hangars
Preview Berlin, an exhibition of works from 60 galleries in 19 countries, takes place in the light-filled, freshly painted Hangar 2 of Tempelhof Airport. Use of this space to showcase young gallery-owners without large-scale resources -- including several from eastern and central Europe -- and artists not yet established in the art world is a stroke of genius.

All three events are on till 10 October 2010. For more information, see:
www.thebigdrawberlin.de
www.stroke03.com
www.previewberlin.de

Figaro is Moving In

Yesterday, after almost two years of renovation, and an investment of 23 million Euros, the newly refurbished Schiller Theater opened its doors as interim housing for the Staatsoper, Berlin's State Opera House on Unter den Linden. There is a sweet ironic twist to the turn of events.

Last Night at the Schiller
The Schiller Theater had been the leading light among West Berlin theaters in the 1950s and 60s. Samuel Beckett himself directed a production of Waiting for Godot here in 1975. But after reunification in 1989, Berlin ended up with more cultural institutions than any other German city, and state funds could not support them all. Two theaters from former east Berlin, the Deutsches Theater and the Volksbühne, made the final cut, but the Schiller Theater had to go.

Berliners still remember the firestorm of protest, the demonstrations, the historic Long Night of the Artists -- a final defiant marathon performance lasting through the night -- and then, the closing in late September 1993.

photo: dpa

Now, exactly 17 years later, and in time for the 20th anniversary of German Unification, a newly gleaming Schiller Theater reopens in the west, and the famous opera house from former east Berlin moves in.  The Staatsoper, undergoing a major three-year renovation, is using the Schiller Theater as its temporary home till 2013. Daniel Barenboim, its music director, called it the reunification made complete.

Figaro is Moving In
Figaro is Moving In is the name of a special guided tour offered by the Schiller Theater during the season's opening days. It takes visitors not only through the building but also to production cast members as they get ready for a performance. Tickets for the tour sold out almost immediately, but although you may have missed it, you can still take the regular guided tour, which offers fascinating glimpses of the restoration work required to make a 1950s theater for dramatic productions suitable for a twenty-first century opera house.

The 1950s design elements are still there: wall frescoes, copper embellishments, Murano-glass ceiling lights, iridiscent mosaic in the foyer's front window. The old 1950s cafeteria lies untouched and even the pastel tones of carpets have been retained. But layers of black paint have been stripped from the walls facing the stage, exposing original warm maple wood panels, front row seats have been ripped out to carve out space for an orchestra pit that can take 120 musicians, and engineers have doubled the resonance in the hall (from 0.9 to almost 2.0 seconds). Take the tour to find out more!

Sleepless in Charlottenburg
There is also a series of night tours that takes place after a performance, and a late-night music and literary series (accompanied by champagne) in the foyer called "Sleepless in Charlottenburg". You don't have to be an opera buff to enjoy the Schiller Theater this season.

For more information, dates and times of the tours, go to the Staatsoper in the Schiller Theater website.
Tours cost 5 EUR (regular price). Tours are in German only.
The Sleepless in Charlottenburg series starts in November and begins at 10:30 pm. Tickets are 15 EUR (regular price).


The Schiller Theater is at Bismarckstrasse 110, 10625 Berlin. The nearest subway is U Ernst-Reuter Platz.

Bauhaus by Bike

You've seen them often: Berlin tourists-on-bikes pedalling determinedly across Potsdamer Platz, sailing down Unter den Linden or whizzing along the East Side Gallery. But, far from the madding crowd, is a 90-minute bike tour with a difference. 

This is the tour I mentioned in my last blog, and it's one that fewer tourists discover. The combined bike/audio guide tour starts from the Haus am Waldsee, then traces a path through the leafy villa colony of Zehlendorf, taking you past 12 private homes designed by Bauhaus artists Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Hermann Muthesius.

photo: Viola F. Ording

The route loops around the beautiful Schlachtensee lake, and the concentration of 1920s Bauhaus homes in this residential neighborhood makes it unique in all of Germany. Some have the romantic charm of English country homes; others have the strict functional lines we associate with purist Bauhaus.

The tour was designed by Katja Blomberg, curator of the Haus am Waldsee, who was inspired by a walking/audio guide tour through a residential neighborhood in Chicago, studded with homes designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Blomberg liked the unpretentious tone of the Chicago audio guide and decided that was exactly what she needed for her Zehlendorf Bauhaus tour. The research and commentary were prepared with the help of students from the Universität der Künste.

An ideal combination of city biking, nature, history and architecture. Nothing spells "Serene Weekend" quite like it.

The Haus am Waldsee is at Argentinsiche Allee 30 (U3 to Krumme Lanke). You can either bring your own bike or rent one at the museum. Rentals are daily from 11 am to 4 pm and cost 5 EUR for two hours. The audio guide is available only in German.

Listen to the Water Grass: Berlin's Haus am Waldsee

At the Haus am Waldsee, you never quite know which of the natural and man-made objects in the garden are actually the work of an artist's imagination. Take for instance the reeds and rushes at the water's edge. When their stalks rustle in the breeze, the whispering sound in the stillness is like the opening bars of a piece of music. Nature's magnum opus? Not quite. The tall grasses were planted by Austrian composer, Peter Ablinger, one of the international artists this museum has featured.


The Haus am Waldsee has been one of my most treasured finds this season. Like many Berliners, I had completely overlooked the 1920s grey villa while biking past it numerous times in hot summers, headed toward the Schlachtensee for a dip in the lake.

Far from the star attractions in the Museumsinsel in Berlin Mitte or the Kulturforum at Potsdamer Platz, the Haus am Waldsee basks in quiet seclusion at the edge of the Grunewald forest, waiting to be discovered.

Originally a private villa, the museum was one of the first to exhibit "degenerate art" after the collapse of the Third Reich. One of its earliest exhibitions (in 1946, when Berlin was still in ruins) was dedicated to the work of Käthe Kollwitz. Around that time, the first performance of the Berlin Philharmonic after the war's end took place here. Today, the Haus am Waldsee is a premier exhibition space for international contemporary artists, designers, musicians and writers.

photo copyright: Pablo Sanz Almoguera

When I visited yesterday, the museum was getting ready for the next exhibition beginning September 10, so there were no visitors -- a perfect opportunity to have the idyllic sculpture garden behind the villa all to myself. The garden is a 10.000 square-meter tree-shaded park that meanders to the Waldsee lake shore.

One of the coolest exhibits in the sculpture garden is the LoftCube.  The vision of Berlin-based designer Werner Aisslinger, the Loftcube is the prototype of a "flying building," which can be lowered by helicopter on to tall building rooftops. If Berlin were to one day look like Tokyo, this would be ideal for urban nomads with a passion for minimalism.

I tried to imagine moving in to the LoftCube in the sculpture garden of the Haus am Waldsee -- surrounded by oaks and pines, looking out at the lake, the whispering reeds for company. Sort of like living in a designer treehouse. Not bad on a sun-dappled September day.

photo copyright: Pablo Sanz Almoguera

photo copyright: Pablo Sanz Almoguera

Stay tuned for my next post on an architectural bike tour you can plan, starting from the Haus am Waldsee.

The Haus am Waldsee is at Argentinische Allee 30, 14163 Berlin. Take U3 to Krumme Lanke, walk south on Argentinische Allee, about 5 minutes. Open, Tuesday to Sunday, 11:00-18:00, Wednesday from 11:00-20:00. Closed on Monday. Entrance to the exhibition is 5 EUR. You don't have to be an art-lover to enjoy the cafe's outdoor seating in the sculpture garden -- it's absolutely delightful.

Hidden Beauty: Nature Park in Schöneberg

My last blog mentioned a nature park in the Schöneberg district, and I promised to tell you why it is one of Berlin's hidden gems. The Natur-Park Schöneberger Südgelände will not show up in a Lonely Planet guide or a travel site's Top Ten Berlin attractions, but this woodland area in an uncompromisingly urban landscape -- a former railway switchyard -- is pure magic.

Nothing prepares you for the 18-hectare expanse of wilderness at the southern end of the Priesterweg S-Bahn station. Neither "preserved" nor landscaped, the park evolved when nature stepped in and took the upper hand.

Steel Rails
Native flora and fauna were wiped out when construction of the Tempelhof railway switchyard began in the 1890s. Over the next decades, this became one of Berlin's busiest rail hubs and, by the time of the Second World War,  a crucial center for transporting war materials. By the late 1940s, the outcome of the war (and later, the Berlin blockade) made the switchyard obsolete. Rail operations finally ground to a halt in 1952. The area became a ghost installation, steel tracks cutting through the land, going nowhere.

Berlin Biotope
Then, silently, Nature reasserted itself. A natural forest grew up, undisturbed by men and machines. Native birch and lime trees, common oaks and Norway maples put down roots between the tracks. Fruit trees marched across the desolate space, and wild roses sprawled across rusting rails. Dry meadows burst into bloom with evening primrose, white wild carrots and sickleweed. Nightingales, robins and blackcaps moved back into their terrain, as did wild bees, crickets and blue-winged grasshoppers. A perfect, miniature biotope flourished in what was once the busiest railway site in Berlin.

photo: Holger Koppatsch

photo: Holger Koppatsch

Railway Tracks through the Wilderness

A steam engine, now surrounded by birch trees, stands witness to the park's history as does the original 1927 water tower. The longest route through the park is 2.7 kms., and when I take it, I feel like a child exploring a secret garden. Don't miss out on walking along a 600 m. long steel-mesh platform raised above the original track bed. Nature lovers find themselves following a path through the wilderness once taken by the steam railways that supplanted it. The experience is unique.

The Nature Park Schönegerger Südgelände was first opened to the public in 2000, generously funded by the Allianz Environmental Foundation, and was declared a Global Project of EXPO 2000. The main entrance to the park is at the southern exit of the Priesterweg S-Bahn station, which you can reach on lines S2 and S25. Opening hours are from 9 a.m. till nightfall. Admission is 1 EUR. Open all year round, and beautiful in any season. Highly recommended: a visit in Fall.

Concerts in the Park

August is the best month for concerts in the park. The sweltering heat of July is over, the last weeks of vacation are still on, and there are at least four weeks to go before theaters and concert halls open again for the new season. Outdoor summer performances remind us that Berlin is gritty but green.


Since I was away on vacation, I missed a large part of the Wassermusik 2010 Festival at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, but I am still in time for the Parks in Concert series (20-29 August), including open-air performances in the Botanische Garten, Schloss Charlottenburg, Britzer Garten, Kulturbrauerei and Schloss Köpenick.

My tip for August-October is the Acoustic Concerts Berlin, a small, unplugged summer concert series that showcases local talent. Concerts are held in intimate settings: this year, the Alte Bahnhofshalle Friedenau, the beautifully restored, historic railway station at S-Bahnhof Friedenau (dating back to 1874), and the Natur-Park Schöneberger Südgelände, one of Berlin's most unique (but still relatively little-known) nature parks. 

I only discovered the park this spring, after having lived just three stops away for many years. It has a fantastic history, so I'll save it for my next post.

Tomorrow (August 13, at 19:30) San Francisco- born Shannon Callahan will be performing at the nature park with her band (guitar/vocals/bass/drums). Callahan has a background in opera and musical theater, but the music she records and performs now is purely acoustic: a mix of folk, pop, country and soul.

Whether or not you make it to the concert tomorrow evening, stay tuned for more on the nature park Schöneberger Südgelände in my next blog to find out why it is one of Berlin's hidden gems.

Shakespeare in the Park

A few weeks ago I blogged about the latest twist in the story of the Stadtschloss. In the wake of the announcement that Berlin's Schlossplatz will remain empty till at least 2014, the earliest date when work on the new Humboldtforum can begin, came ingenious proposals for using the space in the meantime.

Enter the Shakespeare Company, a Berlin theater group with one of the most creative ideas that have come up. The group is lobbying to bring a replica of the historic Globe Theater to the Schlossplatz. "We have the theater, we have the team, we have the concept, and we have the space. All we need now is the permission," says Christian Leonard, the group's artistic director.

The idea is not as far-fetched as it might seem. A replica of the Globe Theater is already waiting in the wings. Set designers at the Babelsburg studios created it for the new film "Anonymous," shot just weeks ago, starring Vanessa Redrave and Rhys Ifans, and directed by Roland Emmerich (remember "Independence Day"?)

The Shakespeare Company's idea is a three-season run, from 2011-2013. Since the replica, seating about 750 people, is already complete and needs only to be dismantled, transported from Babelsburg, then reassembled, costs should not exceed a million EUR. The group will not expect public funding; they believe they can raise sufficient funds from sponsors and supporters. They could set the ball rolling with an opening production in the studios as early as September.

The idea of combining a reproduction of the venerable London theater with the popular New York summer tradition of Shakespeare in the Park and bringing it to the site of Berlin's Stadtschloss is nothing short of brilliant. I'm rooting for the Shakespeare Company!

Pictures are Souls

"I don't have any pictures of me as a child, nor of my parents: nothing that can remind me of my childhood," says Saudi Arabian artist Ahmed Mater.  "To take a picture was considered to be against religion. People thought pictures were souls." 

Grey Borders
Mater and eleven other young artists from Saudi Arabia are presenting their work -- photographs, videos, drawings and installations -- in an exhibition called Grey Borders/Grey Frontiers, part of the sixth Berlin Biennale. There are two good reasons to stop by: one, this is the first exhibition of contemporary art from Saudi Arabia ever held in Germany; and two, it gives us a chance to poke around the newly opened Soho House, Berlin.

We are faceless
Organized by "Edge of Arabia," a grassroots initiative founded by British and Saudi artists, the exhibition challenges powerful cultural taboos. Images are deeply suspect in Saudi Arabia -- many are banned, others scrutinized and sanitized. There are practically no galleries, museums or art books, and its capital Riad, with four million inhabitants, has nary a cinema house.  Jowhara Alsaud's series of line drawings entitled "Out of Line" applies the language of censorship to her personal photographs. In the pop-art style drawings derived from photographs, Alsaud erases all facial features. "We don't know how to deal with photographs in Saudi Arabia, " she says. "Of course, we all keep pictures of family and friends at home, but when we go outdoors, we are faceless."

The Soho House

While at the exhibition, take time to explore the Soho House, Berlin, modeled on the exclusive establishments in London's Soho and New York's Manhattan districts. 

The building on Torstrasse 1 (Berlin, Mitte) was a Jewish-owned department store in the 1920s. Seized by the Nazis, it was converted into the headquarters of the Hitler Youth in the early 1940s.  Renamed the House of Unity in postwar Berlin, it served as the seat of the East German Communist party from 1946-56, and later housed the East German Communist archives. For the past twelve years it has remained empty and in a state of rampant decay.

Now the owners of Soho House, London, have converted Torstrasse 1 into a swanky members-only hotel, retaining striking Communist-era features: the concrete, industrial look, metal staircase and metal filing cabinets in the reception area. Don't miss the Damien Hirst artwork on the wall, which you might mistake for graffiti if you overlook the scrawling signature.

"Grey Borders/Grey Frontiers" is at Soho House, Torstrasse 1, Berlin (U Bahnhof, Rosenthaler Platz). and is open from Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00-18:00. Entrance is free. The exhibition runs till July 18. More information is at www.edgeofarabia.com

For information about Soho House, go to www.sohohouseberlin.com

Castle in the Air

First, Berlin's Palace Bellevue lost its prince -- President Horst Köhler, who resigned in a huff -- and now the city has lost its Palace. The reconstruction of the baroque Stadtschloß was to begin in 2011. But the government's latest austerity measures have shelved plans for one of Germany's most high-flying cultural projects.

Bombed and burned out after the war, the original palace was demolished by the GDR and replaced by the Palace of the Republic, a Stalinist rectangular box with bronze reflective glass.

After the discovery in 1990 of asbestos contamination, the bronze glass box stood closed and sealed for the next few years. Some hated it; some loved it. But in 1993 it was finally decided that the Palace of the Republic had to go -- as much for its historical symbolism as for the asbestos.

Then began the palace debate. What was the best way forward? Keep the GDR Palace after all, for the sake of nostalgia? (After all, how many parliamentary buildings also housed a bowling alley for the people!) Reconstruct the baroque palace, even though the result might be suspiciously close to kitsch? Wipe the slate clean and start anew?

After years of bitter wrangling, a concept for the Humboldt Forum -- a center for the arts and sciences -- was finally approved. Blueprints showed a historical facade replicating three sides of the original palace, but the Forum was unmistakably 21st-century in design and purpose. It would house part of the Humboldt University's Library, as well as the prized collection of non-European art from the Ethnological Museum in Dahlem. This was Berlin's answer to the 21st century museums in Abu Dhabi and Qatar or Aga Khan's museum opening this Fall in Toronto, Canada. All this came with a price tag of 552 million Euros.

But this is no time for big spending, says the government, freezing construction for at least three years. The mayor is incensed. The director of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation is wary, fearing that plans may be put into cold storage indefinitely. Financiers are critical, saying they see no real savings, given the huge cost of now renovating the Dahlem museum, which is in a dismal state of disrepair.

And the Berliners? They are used to temporality.  Eighty percent of them did not believe we needed another palace anyway. And now that summer is finally, finally here, they can't believe their luck: they've just got 18,000 square meters of grassy meadow in the city's historic center with a view of the River Spree and the Lustgarten in which to lounge in their deck chairs. Let the summer roll on!

photo: Mike Wolff

Adieu, Maestro

Ingo Metzmacher, the dynamic conductor of Berlin's Deutsches Symphonie Orchester (DSO) will be making his last appearance with the orchestra this June. After a stormy showdown with the orchestra's four shareholders last year, Metzmacher made a surprise announcement of his departure. Even now, a year later,  you can hear the anger and frustration in his voice on the rare occasions on which he speaks publicly about his decision.

photo: copyright, Mathias Bothor

The strong bond between Metzmacher and his orchestra is so palpable in a live performance it can make your skin tingle. The DSO has had great conductors before (Kent Nagano was the last), but Metzmacher, the young orchestra's first German conductor, has done the most to bring novel ideas into the concert hall. He offers fresh, intriguing programming (one season was devoted to a musical exploration of "the German Soul"), and his trademark Casual Concerts are almost always sold out. At Casual Concerts orchestra members perform in jeans and T-Shirts, and Metzmacher often interrupts them to address the audience, mixing musical analysis and historical perspective with flashes of wry humor. All seats go for a flat 15 Euro, giving the audience profile a shake-up.

A year ago, it seemed as though nothing could stop the DSO and Ingo Metzmacher: they were on a roll. What happened next shows how closely -- and sometimes, disastrously --  politics, business and culture are interlinked in Berlin.

The four shareholders, including two public radio stations, the city of Berlin and the federal government, agreed to an additional subsidy of six million Euros from 2010-12 for the ROC (Rundfunkorchester und-chöre), the four-member ensemble to which the DSO is tied. Now, this level of public financial support for music is extraordinary for most parts of the world. Just ask any leading American orchestra.

The conditions attached to the subsidy, however, were unpalatable for Metzmacher. A disproportionate chunk went to the second orchestra in the ensemble, the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin (RSB), although last year's numbers show that the DSO pulled in twice as many concertgoers and raised twice the amount of revenue. While the RSB was allowed to expand, positions in the DSO (114 requested) were frozen at 103. Just last season, the orchestra lost three prized members to orchestras in Leipzig, Vienna and Munich, which could offer more secure and better paid positions.

The shadow of the Wall falls across the negotiations: in divided Berlin, the DSO was the RIAS Orchestra, (Rundfunk im amerikanischen Sektor), the leading orchestra in the West. And, yes, you might have guessed -- its arch rival, the RSB, was East Berlin's top orchestra.

The show must go on. DSO will perform with guest conductors till they find the right man for the job, and season ticket-holders will probably remain true in Fall 2010. But Metzmacher's departure will recalibrate the sound of this vibrant, young orchestra, and the competition with Berlin's six other major orchestras will be tougher than ever. Adieu, maestro. You -- and the DSO -- deserved better.

photo: copyright, Mathias Bothor

Ingo Metzmacher's final performance with the DSO in Berlin will be on Monday, June 14, at 20:00, at the Philharmonie, Berlin. The DSO, with Ingo Metzmacher, then launches into its busy summer schedule,  performing in several European cities including London, at the BBC Proms. For more information go to www.dso-berlin.de

A Memorial in our Midst

Berlin commemorated the fifth anniversary of the Holocaust Memorial this past week, honoring initiator Lea Rosh and architect Peter Eisenman, who had flown in from NewYork for the occasion. The Holocaust Memorial is now one of the most visited sites in Berlin: over the past five years, visitors have numbered about two and a half million for the underground museum alone, and at least eight million for Eisenman's Stelenfeld (Field of Steles).

photo: copyright, Mike Wolff

Eisenman's design for the memorial consists of 2711 slabs of grey concrete that become a dynamic labyrinth because of their varying heights, and axes that run both horizontally and vertically. Covering almost 20.000 square meters, the long, narrow passages between the slabs are claustrophobic spaces one moment, and entranceways to a widening vista the next.

The memorial's location -- in the heart of the city, near the former site of Hitler's Chancellery -- was the subject of a long, heated debate. Planners struggled with the question whether it was appropriate to place a holocaust memorial in a central open space without any enclosures, open to the public all 24 hours, and amid the banalities of urban life -- including a stand selling bratwurst on its periphery.

Five years on, even its once harshest critics recognize that the concept has been extraordinarily successful. Eisenman's Stelenfeld is impressive exactly because it is both a memorial to a haunting past and an integral part of Berlin's daily life -- exactly as the architect had envisioned.

photo: copyright, Mike Wolff

Walking through the stone labyrinth can be an emotional experience. This is a somber landscape that prompts reflection, and, deep in the labyrinth, you can suddenly feel alone in the midst of a large city. And yet this is not a museum to a fossilized past, nor is it a graveyard. Just when you feel the concrete slabs closing in on you, a child skips through a gap in the stones or a pedestrian stretches out briefly on one of the the sun-warmed flat surfaces.

In a city of memorials, this is perhaps the one that best reflects the character of Berlin. It is a memorial in our midst. You may find a school class working busily on a project. The person who lays a rose on one of the slabs may be a tourist or a holocaust survivor. There is no denying the depth of memory here, or the quiet dignity of the site. But there is no forced solemnity; people can be themselves. They can pose for a photograph, steal a kiss or risk a leap from stone to stone. Even the bratwurst stand has the right to remain.

'Kulturstadt' with a Heart

On April 26 a remarkable new initiative in Berlin called Kulturloge kicked off. Brainchild of Angela Meyenburg, Kulturloge opens doors to cultural performances for those who cannot afford an evening at the theater, opera or concert hall.


The idea is a simple one. On the one hand, theaters and concert houses often have unsold tickets on performance night. On the other, those tickets represent the answer to a great need felt by Berliners on social welfare or in dire economic straits. Brief excursions into the city's cultural life can help lift them out of their isolation, stimulate their imagination and renew faith in themselves.

The Berlin Pass
Berlin is already very open to the idea of making culture available to all. The Berlin Pass, issued by the Senate, allows social welfare recipients to purchase available tickets for no more than three Euros -- a fantastic opportunity afforded to the weakest economic groups.

Tickets, please
But Kulturloge betters this deal because their members (or "guests") are assured of anonymity when they claim tickets at the box office. Once on the list of Kulturloge members, they receive a telephone call by volunteers when tickets for their preferred cultural events become available. If they confirm that they will attend, Kulturloge arranges everything else. While a Berlin Pass marks the owner as a "charity case," Kulturloge guests can maintain their dignity by simply picking up their reserved ticket at the box office. The others waiting in line -- even the salespersons -- have no clue they are "different."

Everybody Wins
The Grips Theater, Admiralspalast, Literaturhaus Berlin and the current exhibition at the Schloss Charlottenburg are among the 15 cultural partners who have already pledged support as partners. Meyenburg's team is optimistic that the next partner acquisitions will include the Berliner Ensemble, Friedrichstadtpalast and the Deutsche Oper.

photo: Jan Oberländer

Everybody wins, says Meyenburg: the cultural establishments, which run to full houses and win audiences from a broad cross-section of the population; the guests, who regain a sense of dignity and perspective by focusing on creativity rather than on mere survival; the city of Berlin; and, of course, the Kulturloge concept -- which shows every indication of being rapidly replicated in other cities.

Gallery Weekend
As I write, Berlin's Gallery Weekend is on: a three-day art marathon, with 40 galleries and 40 openings between Friday, April 30 and Sunday, May 2.  At least 700 art collectors from around the world are expected, and participating galleries -- some featuring the work of art celebs such as Damien Hirst and Elizabeth Peyton -- pay eye-popping fees of several thousand Euros.


But the Kulturloge, for me, is the bigger story. Because Berlin is not just another world cultural city -- it is the Kulturstadt with a heart.

"Loge" means a box at a theater. The first Kulturloge initiative started last year in Marburg and has got off to a flying start. Hamburg is slated to follow next. More information is at www.kulturloge-berlin.de

Mind the Gap: What Next for the Kulturforum?

Just in time for spring weather and banks of daffodils come fresh plans for the Kulturforum on Potsdamer Platz. An ensemble of star cultural institutions in former West Berlin, the Kulturforum includes the Philharmonie (the Berlin Philharmonic), the Gemäldegalerie (Art Gallery), Neue Nationalgalerie (New National Gallery) and Staatsbibliothek (State Library). But the bland concrete lot between the Philharmonie and the Neue Nationalgalerie  has been a yawning gap in the cultural landscape, the bane of urban planners. Now here comes a scheme to convert this area into a green space, closed to traffic.

Sleeping Beauty
Time to kiss the Sleeping Beauty awake, says the Urban Planning Commission of the Berlin Senate. It proposes converting this grey area into a park-like landscape with trees, a sculpture garden, terrace, cafe and information pavilion. The buildings belonging to the Kulturforum will be illuminated to emphasize their distinctive form and function (Hans Scharoun designed both the Library and the Philharmonie, Mies van der Rohe the National Gallery), and the forum will host an annual cultural event such as an Arts Festival.

Get Real
Sounds good? Not every one is delighted. Michael Cullen, historian, weighed in with a sharp critique. "Do architects eat? Do they ever stop to have a drink?" he fumed in an article in Berlin's daily newspaper. Yes, the plans look good on an architect's drawing table (says Cullen), but let's get real. Why does Berlin need this green space when the Tiergarten is a stone's throw away? And when people come out of the concert hall, art gallery, museum or library after concentrating on culture for two or three hours, what they need most is somewhere to go with friends for a drink or a meal in the late hours. Look at London, Paris or New York. True urban centers mix culture with more elemental stuff.

Reply to Cullen
Now, Cullen is an authority on Berlin architecture -- in fact, it was Cullen who suggested the famous "Wrapped Reichstag" project to artists Jeanne-Claude and Christo back in the early 1970s, later staying on the team as historical advisor -- so who am I to take issue with his analysis? But I can't resist. Here are my counter-arguments:

a) Take a close look at the pubs and restaurants that we do have around Potsdamer Platz: variations of international chains at rip-off prices, targeted to tourists and avoided by Berliners. Do we honestly need a steakhouse next to St. Matthäuskirche (St. Matthew's Church) or laptop-toters on sofas in a Starbucks outside the Philharmonie's Chamber Music Hall?

b) Museum cafes have refreshments, and so does the Philharmonie during intermission. Now imagine a green space into which  concert-goers could spill on a warm summer evening, bringing their wine and cheese; where readers could take a break from the Rare Books Archive, bringing out a brown bag lunch around noon and nodding off for a while; where toddlers-in-tow who have had their fill of trailing behind parents in front of cubist paintings finally have a chance to scamper around. Sounds like just the ticket to me.

c) Also, if you want to head to a cosy pub or restaurant in the late hours in the Potsdamer Platz area, you don't need to draw a blank. About a five-minute walk from the Neue Nationalgalerie is a traditional Berlin restaurant with a warm, homely atmosphere and great food at affordable prices -- a tip from a colleague that I am loath to give away because I had enjoyed keeping this to myself as a "Geheim-Tipp." But all right, here it is: the Joseph-Roth-Diele on Potsdamerstr. 75.

So there, Mr. Cullen.

A note on JR: Joseph Roth was an Austrian writer, one of the finest literary journalists in the German-speaking countries in the 1920s and 30s. His best pieces were written for the Frankfurter Zeitung (now Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, one of Germany's leading news sources) in the form of feuilleton. Still a staple feature of major European newspapers, feuilleton sections include literary-style book, theater and film reviews. Roth's reports from Berlin in the 1920s were collected as a guidebook in the 1990s and appears in a recent English translation as What I saw: Reports from Berlin, 1920-33.

Calligraphy and More

This exquisite wooden and mother-of-pearl door is from eighteenth-century Gujerat in India -- just one of 200 objects on display in the Treasures of the Aga Khan Museum exhibition featuring Masterpieces of Islamic Art, which opened today in the Martin Gropius Bau.

Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

The artworks on display -- miniature paintings, book illustrations, manuscripts, wood carvings, metal work, ceramics, jewellery, ivory ornamentation, religious inscriptions -- cover a span of time from the 8th to the 18th century, and a dizzying half-spin of the globe from the Iberian peninsula, through Sicily, Egypt, the Ottoman Empire, Persia, Central Asia and on to the Moghul Empire in India.

They are just one-fifth of the collection belonging to the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, based in Geneva, which includes about 1000 of the Islamic world's most valuable treasures, documenting its rich history over ten centuries. The collection's owner is Karim Aga Khan IV, the billionaire philanthropist who is also the spiritual head of the Ismaili Muslims and regarded as the direct descendant of the Prophet.

The pearl-inlaid wooden door from Gujerat, the monumental turquoise glazed stone jar from 13th century Iran, the Anwar-i-Suhayli (Lights of Canopus) illustrated fables from the 15th century, the pages of the Blue Quran from North Africa, all make me want to catch the next flight out to Geneva to see the rest of this incredible collection.

But I was perhaps most captivated by one of the first and -- at 28 centimeters in length -- one of the smallest of the objects on display.

On the preserved leaf of a chestnut tree, a nineteenth-century artist from the Ottoman Empire has inscribed a Quran text in beaten gold. 

In the calligraphic curves of the script you recognize the form of an ancient rowing boat, the raised oars of the sailors cutting through the waves. At the same time, you trace the filigree patterns of the leaf's veins shimmering transparently through the gold. The work is a marvel: this tiny object prompts you to think about nature, art, writing, sacred scripture, mystery, beauty and poetry -- and the vision that drew these vast fields of knowledge together in so compressed a form.

The exhibition runs till June 6, 2010 at the Martin Gropius Bau. If you are in Berlin during this time, put the Treasures of the Aga Khan Museum on your Must See list. This is the first time these artworks are being shown in Germany, and the exhibition is making its last appearance in Europe before the collection finally travels "home" to Toronto, Canada, where it will be housed in the new Aga Khan Museum, starting 2013.

"Treasures of the Aga Khan Musuem" is showing at the Martin Gropius Bau, Niederkirchnerstraße 7, 10963 Berlin, till June 6, 2010. Open everyday except Tuesday, from 10 am to 8 pm.  Entrance is 8 EUR (reduced fee: 6 EUR). You can also take advantage of the "Long Nights" at the Martin Gropius from April 28 to May 1, when exhibitions remain open from 10 am to 12 midnight. Public transportation: take U2 or S1, 2 or 25 to Potsdamer Platz.

More information is at www.gropiusbau.de

Winter Warmers (5): Movie Magic

Even if you are not old enough to be nostalgic about drive-in movies, or remember watching Cary Grant on the big screen through the windshield of a bright pink Chevy, you'll still love the idea of British video artist Phil Collins to bring the drive-in experience to an installation in Berlin's Temporäre Kunsthalle (Temporary Art Musuem).

 

Photo: copyright, Getty Images

Cars with Character

Collins (no relation to the ex-Genesis singer/songwriter), has transformed Berlin's temporary art museum on the Schlossplatz into an indoor drive-in movie theater. Not for Collins the glamor of Hollywood films, nor the iconic cars of 1950s America. Instead, Collins concentrates on German and experimental films, and he has hand-picked a fleet of 15 second-hand cars from a car-dealer on  Köpenick Strasse in Kreuzberg. They come in different flavors: cosy Citroen, Peugot and Renault; roomy Ford, Nissan and Opel-Corsa; swanky BMW, Audi and Mercedes; and always, leather seats preferred.

"I wanted cars with character, with a Berlin past," says Collins. "I wasn't looking for Chevys, but rather for cars we were not at all nostalgic about -- practical cars like VW and Opel."

Himmel über Berlin

For the showings each evening till March 14, Collins has chosen 111 films, among them German productions from the 1930s and 40s to the present day, including melodramas produced by Ufa (Universum Film AG, the principal film studio during the Weimar Republic and through World War II) and Defa (Deutsche Film AG, the main film studio of the German Democratic Republic). "Auto-Kino!" covers a range of forms: experimental and essay films, art videos, documentaries, thrillers, classic who-dun-its, Japanese art and graphic art films. Most film classics are shown in their splendid original 35 mm. version.

"I wanted to create a spectrum as wide as the Himmel über Berlin," says Collins, referring to the German title of the Wim Wenders film "Wings of Desire." As an artist, he is interested in the various forms in which media is presented, and fascinated by the power of film to manipulate but also to shape the search for identity of a place or community. 

Passion Pits

Drive-in movie theaters, called "Passion-Pits" by the watchful moral guardians of 1950s America, never really caught on in Germany -- perhaps because here, small and mid-size local theaters provided the kind of living-room atmosphere sought by romantic couples. Collins' installation, however, has had a successful run since it opened, and many showings are sold out early. Either romance is in the air, or the unforgiving winter has enhanced the lure of leather seats in which you can hunker down.

As winter 2010 shows no sign of loosening its icy grip, Berliners have warmed to "Auto-Kino!" Ditching their downloaded films on PCs and I-Pods for a while, they have reverted to watching cinema in an intimate, companionable setting. Safe in their VW station wagon, they don't have to worry about a sibilant "Shhh!" from the back row if they make a remark or rustle a bag of chips. 

"Auto-Kino!" takes place every day from 2 pm to 9 pm till March 14 at the Temporäre Kunsthalle, Schlossplatz (Mitte), 10178 Berlin. Entrance is free. Call to make a reservation as there are only 30 seats available. T. +49 (0)30 2060 5512. Public Transportation: S and U-Bahn Friedrichstrasse or Bus 100 or 200 to Lustgarten on Unter den Linden. The complete program is available at www.kunsthalle-berlin.com

"Auto-Kino!" is made possible by a grant from the DAAD and was included as one of the venues in the "Forum Expanded" section of the Berlinale, Berlin's International Film Festival, in February.   

Winter Warmers (4): Red Carpet at the Berlinale

Every February, the red carpet at the Berlinale, Berlin's International Film Festival, brings a welcome note of warmth to the deep mid-winter. This year is the Berlinale's 60th, and its organizers have introduced an interesting new feature to mark the anniversary.

Flying Red Carpet
In 2010, the Berlinale's red carpet will not be reserved for the large venues that host the festival's participating films. Instead, for the first time, a flying red carpet will also move out to smaller neighborhood cinemas. "Berlinale goes Kiez" ("Kiez" = neighborhood) is the brainchild of Berlinale director, Dieter Kosslick. "We want to put Berlin's wonderful art house cinemas in the limelight and, at the same time, say thank you to the ardent cineasts who have been faithful to this festival for so long," says Kosslick. He has reason to be proud: the Berlinale enjoys the largest audience of any film festival in the world.

Renee Zellweger, Berlinale 2010 jury member   photo: dpa

Coming to a Theater near You
On ten evenings between February 12 and 21, a selected art house cinema will feature two festival films. A red carpet will be unrolled for each gala screening and, as in the larger venues, directors, producers and members of the film team will be present -- only this time the audience will have a chance to interact with them in a much smaller, more intimate setting.

Scene from Niels Arden Oplev's Drømmen  photo: Deutsche Kinemathek

The ten art house cinemas include: Adria in Steglitz; Capitol Dahlem in Zehlendorf; Eva Lichtspiele in Wilmersdorf; Hackesche Höfe Kino in Mitte; Kant Kino in Charlottenburg; Moviemento in Kreuzberg; Neues Off in Neukölln; Odeon in Schöneberg; Kino Toni and Tonino in Weißensee; and Union Filmtheater in Köpenick.

Snow lies round about, deep and crisp and not so even, but see if we care! Red carpet glamor will arrive at our own neighborhood theaters --- a world away from soulless multiplexes in shopping malls -- and we will lose ourselves once again in the magic of the big screen and world-class cinema.

The 60th Berlinale runs February 11-21, 2010, and will feature 392 films from around the world. Tickets go on sale from Monday, February 8. The festival officially opens on February 11 with the premiere of the Chinese film Tuan Yuan in the Berlinale Palast. More information in both German and English is available at the Berlinale website www.berlinale.de