Feb 21

The 60th Berlinale comes to an end. So much has happened over the past 11 days. I’ve met so many people. So many interesting people who share different loves, and favorites of different genres of film. The topics at the festival were all so real time on one end, and so reflective of the past on the other end. I almost felt like I were no longer in Berlin, but someplace else. I walked the red carpet at the Berlinale Palast twelve times, had brunch with politicians at an embassy, visited the world and it’s struggles, it’s issues and it’s pain through the eyes of filmmakers and their subjects. I cried when the people I felt connected to, for over 90 minutes on the big screen, suddenly appeared in front of me at the end of almost every screening. People who felt all alone in their sorrows, now stand in a room full of strangers who now feel for them, all due to this platform of communication, film. Their voices now heard. A first for most of them – some had never seen snow, or Germany, had never been inside of a theatre prior to, or even dreamed of being in a film. It was also a first for me, a first at the Berlinale and I have already committed to being apart of the experience for the years that follow. Tomorrow I return to normal life, to German class, after escaping into the Berlinale. As usual I will arrive fifteen minutes early, to claim my favorite seat next to Sara and to tell her all about my experiences. Every one of my classmates, who were, or are still, considered enemies, as I have been repeatedly told via film, in that tiny little room, they are somehow just friends. I would also like to also congratulate Waste Land for winning the Berlinale Audience award. It’s great to know, that many others feel the same when it comes to a recommendation.

Feb 20

Feb 19

Meet Greta. She’s a now out of work, once freelance architect. She hasn’t had a big project in the last ten years. She wakes up everyday in the same disco outfit, exhausted from partying and drinking of the night before. She’s lost. She’s confused. The opportunities for architects have dried up. Now she works at a call center, for seven euros an hour surrounded by women half her age. But her time is short there, she performs unsuccessfully, and then gets fired. Her group of architect friends can’t help her, won’t hire her and can’t bare to share. Out of this group, there are only a few professionals that actually get paid for their work. It’s almost a rarity opposed to a commonality. She tries to collect money from a friend who has long owed her money, but the friend claims to be struggling and has none to offer, despite her swanky architecturally designed office. Welcome to the New Berlin. Where the opportunities are limited, where mommies trot their babies in strollers, and where The Gretas of this place drink till sunrise and rebel. Eine Flexible Frau is a film directed by Tatjana Turansky, starring Mira Partecke as the lead. I must admit I was a bit disappointed in the selection of German films at the Berlinale. They seemed to be limited, not only in selection but also in quality. Jud Süß – Film ohne Gewissen, directed by Oskar Roehle, starring Moritz Bleibtreu was booed at it’s premiere. Portraits deutscher Alkoholiker was not bad enough to put me asleep, but it definitely wasn’t good enough to keep me awake. So I was in a weird in-between phase of being semi awake and being completely asleep, and it didn’t help being trapped in the middle row, unable to leave. Der Räuber directed by Benjamin Heisenberg, was the exception. The only one that showed any sign of life. With a two out of three frown upon German cinema for the 60th Berlinale, I was definitely hesitating on seeing Eine Flexible Frau. But I’m glad I gave it a chance, because I loved it, and found it to be quite an eye opener. It’s real time, nailing today’s society, in the New Berlin. No matter where you live in the city or what your situation is, you will be able to relate to this story in some way.

Feb 18

Can what you throw in the trash transform lives? When I was a kid, we put our trash into one big bag, threw it away, and forgot about it. Everything went inside that one bag – paper, leftover food, old out of season shoes, cans, bottles, you name it. We threw it away and then we forgot about it. It was garbage. Garbage was meant to be disposed of and not to be thought of again. The garbage collectors were like ghosts, coming early in the morning before sunrise to collect everything that we no longer wanted or desired to see ever again. Not caring much about where the garbage would go or where it would end up. Waste Land is a story about how trash changed the lives of a group of Brazilian garbage pickers, when Vik Muniz, a well-known contemporary artist, decides to give faces to the garbage pickers of the world’s largest landfill. He not only transforms unwanted garbage into high-end contemporary art, he also transforms the lives of the pickers. I was so surprised, amazed and astonished by Waste Land that by the Berlinale’s end, I will have seen it twice. A must see. Waste Land is directed by Lucy Walker.

Feb 17

The Berlinale’s website has a daily planner option that allows for one to easily organize all the many films that you could ever imagine to see. And if you love watching films, than you know that film festivals are like Christmas presents. As for me, I had already planned on what I wanted to see, a week before the festival had even started. My Berlinale daily planner was full, to the absolute max. For every morning, for each afternoon and for every evening of the eleven days that the festival is to play. But then I got a pleasant little surprise. A last minute opportunity to see The Athlete a film by directors Davey Frankel and Rasselas Lakew. The Athlete is one of the few films that I’ve seen at the festival, that was able to move me to tears. A spectacular true story about Abebe Bikila, an Ethiopian marathon runner who was the first black African in history to win an Olympic gold medal. It’s an uplifting pic about a man who overcame the odds against him – conquering Rome barefoot for his Olympic winning race, and going on to win additional awards in cross-country sledging even after being paralyzed in a tragic car accident. Beautiful scenic shots and a beautiful story well told.

Feb 16

Even after 20 years, of the fall of the Berlin wall, there are still barriers being built around the world. Budrus is a tiny Palestinian village, located about 30 kilometers northwest of Ramallah in the northern West Bank. It’s a small community, with a population of about 1,500. The people in the village pride themselves on their land, and on their olive trees. But when the Israeli army starts construction of a new separation fence that threatens to destroy the village’s olive trees, the people of Budrus join forces with Israeli and other International activists in a non-violent protest that would change the future direction of the fence’s route. Budrus is an inspiring documentary, and is directed by award winning filmmaker Julia Bacha.

Feb 15

Berlin has cleaned up a lot since I first came here in 2006. But the presence of street art is still apparent. If you’re a street art fanatic then you’ve heard of the ultra mysterious Banksy. For over 10 years, the hunt has been on for the real identity of Banksy, who has yet to reveal his true identity, despite his work being bought by everyone from serious art collectors to celebrities. He has fans that range from youngsters who have a passion for street art, to art intellectuals who collect Picasso. Through it all, his identity has remained in question. When an amateur filmmaker named Thierry Guetta tries to capture Banksy on film to complete his street art documentary, the film changes focus and actually becomes a story about the director, showcasing his over-the-top quests to be an overnight artist and hold exhibitions like Banksy. Exit Through the Gift Shop is a result of what happens when the person behind the camera becomes far more interesting than the participant in front. Though documentary, it has a comedic flair, and is sure to grant some laughs. Banksy’s street work has appeared worldwide, and in Berlin, in the Mitte and Kreuzberg districts.

Feb 14

Sara is a young Muslim woman of Turkish decent. She takes German classes with me, five times a week. Each morning, I come to class 15 minutes early, just to claim my favorite seat, left of the teacher, next to the window. Sara follows, typically about five minutes later, and claims her usual seat right next to me. I learn a lot in my German class, but the favorite part of my day, is Sara. She has a warmth about her face, that I’ve never seen before. When I don’t know the answer to a German question, she turns to face me and smiles, and I can’t help but to feel ok. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be friends with her? Is she even allowed to be friends with me? What would her family think, of her being friends with a non-Muslim American? About two weeks ago, Sara missed a week of classes. When she returned, I saw her waiting by the classroom door, five minutes before my early enough time, smiling at me when she saw me approaching her, smiling back. I felt warmth, and wondered in that moment, if I should reach out to hug her. It seemed like she wanted to as well, but I hesitated, wrestling with myself internally on if it would be appropriate. I decided not to. The opportunity came and went too quickly. I felt ashamed. I realized that my hesitation to extend warmth, was just part of my ignorance to her culture. The 60th Berlinale has a selection of over 400 films to see. It’s impossible to see them all, but when I got the opportunity to see Die Fremde about a young Turkish woman in Berlin, it didn’t come from me just wanting to see a film, but also because of Sara.

Umay, is a 25 year old Muslim woman of Turkish decent from Berlin. When she leaves her abusive husband in Istanbul and returns to Berlin, she thinks she will be welcomed. But when shame and dishonor is brought upon her family because of her choices, community is quickly chosen over family. Sibel Kekilli stars as Umay. She is followed by an excellent supporting cast. Die Fremde’s director and writer Feo Aladag spends plenty of time taking viewers into a world where honor, is always stronger than blood.

Feb 13

Who determines literary merit, and what defines obscenity? This is the focus of Howl, a film about American poet Allen Ginsberg, starring James Franco. Howl is centered around an obscenity trial made against the publisher of Ginsberg’s famous collection of poems, Howl. The film cuts between interviews with an off-camera journalist, to courtroom scenes with literary experts giving opinions concerning literary merit of Gingberg’s poems, live poetry scenes that capture the era of the 50’s, and of Ginsberg’s personal struggles to find love. The film manages to dig into the mind of a poet, explains his personal struggles, and then aligns it with these thoughts that had influenced his poems. In addition to a solid story, Franco delivers on a confident, leading performance. And the visuals are just as equally solid. A mix of animation that brought visual art to some of Ginsberg’s already explosive spoken pieces. Howl is intellectually engaging and recommended.

Feb 12

I like to think, that any birthday, that enters a new decade, is a moment for thinking of how far you’ve come, and for what you envision in the future. A point where you’ve perfected your craft. Where you’ve become a bit wiser. Have found your niche, after walking many paths. Something that fits. Something that’s you. For the Berlinale’s 60th anniversary, it seems that they have found their niche, the alternative.

But I admit, for their big 60th, I was anticipating glam. The kind when actresses came in ballgowns, white gloves, sparkly jewelry and pressed hair.

But today’s festival is different. Directors take Q&A sessions in worn sweaters, minus the bow ties, and somehow for me, it feels completely ok.

The Berlinale, was conceived by the US military during the peak of the Cold War. A lot has changed and grown since then, and as evidence to that, for it’s 60th, the Berlinale gave Tuan Yuan, an Asian film, the lead in opening the ceremony. But what also premiered was Veselchaki. A Russian modern day film about transvestites in Moscow.

Keeping in sync with Berlinale alternative, I opted for Veselchaki.

I had high hopes and good intentions for this film, but was let down by it’s lack of character development, misplaced glitter and gloss, off key disco music and missed opportunities at emotional explanation.

But that’s just the start of my journey. Each day, I will explore ten days of topics, about borders in Asia, to invisible cultural borders in Germany, to American terrorism, to the streets of Africa, and love in Spain, reflections on the past, confusion among the youth, films that explore the environment, embrace the love of food, and of what happens when veteran filmmakers mentor a room full of tomorrow’s stars.

60 wishes, 60 candles, Happy Birthday Berlinale.

I spent a summer in Japan when I was 15 and discovered that Japanese chefs can take any foreign  pastry– Italian tiramisu, French puff pastry, and even Spanish churros– and improve on perfection.  The Japanese versions of western style cakes tasted lighter and more flavorful.  And boy were they pretty.  But try as they might, the Japanese have not mastered the German Baumkuchen, the self proclaimed King of Cakes.  Germany still has a monopoly on this unique tree cake, and Berlin has expert bakers at Konditorei Buchwald, a cafe near the Bellevue S-bahn in Tiergarten, who have been baking this treat for 150 years. This wonderfully intricate cake is characterized by striations of sponge cake gently baked to resemble the rings of a tree.  In grade school I learned that the rings of a tree reveal its age.  Not so for the Baumkuchen.  Instead the rings reveal the care and consistency that is required to make an especially good slice.  The Baumkuchen is cooked over a flame on an electric spit which looks like a horizontal doner kebab machine.  Batter is lovingly and repeatedly poured over the cake and baked at even intervals.  When it has reached the desired thickness, the cake is brushed with a light coating of apricot jam and sealed with a hard chocolate or clear glazed bark. The cake is then cut into doughnut-shaped rings.  The Konditorei is a great place for Kaffeeklatch;  they also have a brisk to-go business selling Baumkuchen by the pound. While not cheap, this dense and flavorful cake is a wonderful treat to bring to the folks back home.  Even to your Japanese friends in Tokyo.  Oishi! (Amanda Herman)

When walking my daughter’s dog in Charlottenburg, I enjoy examining the plaques on buildings. My favorite is the one marking the building on Mommsenstraße where Hanns Sachs lived from 1920 to 1932.  Sachs was a Viennese lawyer who was trained by Freud and became a member of his inner circle.  Karl Abraham, another early student of Freud, returned to Berlin and founded the first psychoanalytic institute anywhere in 1920. Freud sent Sachs to Berlin to be the training analyst. He remained in Berlin analyzing future psychoanalysts in his Mommsenstraße apartment until 1932, when he moved to Boston, Massachusetts and performed the same function for the Boston institute.  Another such plaque marks the residence of Ernst Simmel, psychoanalyst and socialist, in Westend.  He founded the first psychoanalytic hospital, in  Schloß Tegel, in 1927.  Arrested by the Nazis, on his release he moved to Los Angeles, where he organized the first psychoanalytic study group in 1934. (Bob LeVine)

Herbie Hancock’s piano intro follows with a short riff of staccato trumpet. The 10 o’clock crowd is excited and attentive; beers sprawled across the packed tables.  This is just a regular night at the historic A-Trane jazz club. Or at least I picture it that way. This Charlottenburg musical institution can boast the likes of Alice Coltrane and Wynton Marsalis among its long list of famous performers, though I have never seen these people. More important than them, the pricey 30 Euro concerts and the magical performances of eras past is the egalitarian, convivial atmosphere of the place.  Free Saturday night jam sessions, when musicians and enthusiasts stroll in past midnight evoke that cool, improvisational nonchalance that we want from jazz. The waitresses will pass you tall glasses of beer through the arms and coats of eight people. You can go alone or in a group, but loneliness and company become irrelevant as you are blasted away by simple noise. After, walking out into the cold quiet of Bleibtreustrasse at 3am, in the dead of December, your blood is warm and pulsing—maybe from the beer or the lingering bass vibrations—and you feel ready for anything and nothing at the same time. (Bettina Warburg-Johnson)

As Berlin upgrades its chameleon wardrobe toward something more sophisticated, it’s tempting to find its bohemian foundations provincial or quaint—in any case, relegated to the pile marked, “donations.” But such a linear notion of progress belies this city’s iconoclastic nature. Berlin is a humane place, scaled for human beings. This is clear to anyone who walks along the stretch of the Landwehr Canal in front of the Vivantes Klinikum am Urban (aka the Urban Krankenhaus). Whether this scrappy swath of nature belongs to the city or to the hospital is unclear. Between Admiralbrücke and Baerwaldbrücke, it’s neither park nor strasse. It’s neither here nor really there. Sure, moored on either side of the hospital bank are two cafes in sailboats, whose colored lights strung from the masts certainly welcome tourists. But in between them sits a fat, abandoned ferryboat whose smashed windows and graffiti silently attest to the legends of yesterday’s parties. Maybe the city’s too broke to move it, but for the passers-by who stop here (and perhaps also the patients behind the hospital’s windows), the trashed boat epitomizes Berlin’s sense of humor; it’s a monument to not taking life too seriously. On warm afternoons throughout the year, adventurous readers climb over the low fence along the northern side of the canal to dangle their legs over the edge and enjoy hours of southern exposure. During long days around the summer solstice, the gravel path is crowded with slow bicyclists, wild children chased by strollers, patients in wheelchairs, and the usual flâneurs. Picnickers and laughing sunbathers, a few strumming musicians, chess players and lovers crowd the patchy grass next to the water. From wooden benches many watch these unabashed displays of life, some in spite of a bandaged eye or half-hidden IV. Swans ornament the shores and aggressively hunt for scraps. Sometimes a tall man on an air mattress floats, napping, in the canal. This un-place belongs to anyone who pauses, enchanted by an unexpected glint of sunlight on the canal or the welcoming mood of a motley gathering. Here is something spontaneous and unselfconscious. Something natural. For this nature to reside within the purview of the Urban Krankenhaus is, for anyone, heart-breakingly humane. (Emily Lundin)

In the winter, Berlin streets are notoriously grim; the eye savors any bright spot—a child’s mittens, a circus ad. But at the top of Rosa Luxemburg Strasse stands an oasis of color: local milliner Rike Feurstein’s eponymous boutique, a veritable confectionery of candy-hued hats. Inside, one tries them on like identities: A leopard-print cloche à la Marion Davies, a violet felt fedora–cocked over one eye, of course–a modern-day Dietrich. To cold-reddened ears, the soft wool hats whisper most enticingly. A vermillion shapka says “Russian oligarch’s wife.”  A lime-green rasta cap–paired, perhaps, with a rainbow-striped parabola of a scarf–“ingénue.” Eventually, the modiste herself emerges from her adjacent workshop to assist in the selection, and an ingenious knit visor in petrol blue is wrapped in tissue and dispatched into the cityscape. (Megan O’Grady)

The pre-war, stone row houses on my street in Tempelhof are painted colors unusual in drab Berlin: rhubarb red, periwinkle blue, hunter green and three different shades of yellow. Every house has an old cherry or magnolia tree out front. On the long oval patch of common green in the center of our street, we meet for block parties at the end of the school year or for Christmas caroling in front of a bonfire. We can knock on our neighbor’s door if we’ve run out of milk. We water each other’s vegetable gardens when we go on vacation. We keep an eye on each other’s kids. We gesticulate wildly when a car drives too fast down our block. Although we rarely go there, we love to remind everyone how close we live to the excitement of Mitte. We drive almost everywhere in our minivans, but we boast about the subway’s proximity anyway. (Rose-Anne Clermont)

On the rare late fall day when blue sky pierces Berlin’s chronic dark gray, I bike across the river from my Friedrichshain neighborhood to Treptower Park.  Unlike Tiergarten, whose lovely ponds and clumps of flora are constantly interrupted by city streets, the paths in Treptower Park stretch luxuriously for miles, like a good long yawn.  The walk along the river is crowded with others craving the sunshine: blinking older couples with their ancient dogs, shivering teenage girls in thin tights and mini skirts, the odd indie rock band doing a photo shoot for their upcoming ill-fated album (the good looking singer strides out in front, the dumpy drummer skulking in the back, the photographer-girl-groupie clicking away).  When the path dead-ends, I cut across a parking lot to the paved trail that snakes back through the woods, my favorite part of the ride.  The autumn trees are aflame and the leaves churn in clouds of violet, gold and rust under my wheels.  Sometimes I shout things or sing, happy to delude myself with the notion that I am miles from anywhere and not only a few meters from the main path.  Treptower Park’s biggest attractions are its oversized Soviet War Memorial and the creepy abandoned amusement park in its center, but I like it for the most obvious of parkly reasons: its ability to suspend my urban disbelief. (Brittani Sonnenberg)

This is actually a eulogy, for a cafe on Knesebeckstrasse that closed last year. It was called The Kitchen. The food was delicious. The proprietress, Patricia Ferer, a warm and wonderful person from St. Louis via New York City, was always welcoming. But it was more than that. Sometimes the stars align such that a particular place sums up the experience of a generation or at least a neighborhood. The Kitchen was such a place. Open only 2 years and 9 months (almost exactly as long as the original, 1970s-defining Studio 54, as fate would have it) The Kitchen gave Charlottenburg a center where there had been none. People came by to eat lunch, to buy dinner to go, to drink coffee in the morning. But mostly they came by to meet each other. This corner of Berlin is notoriously lacking in community, but for a brief moment we had a real hang-out, where people talked between the tables and made lasting friendships. During the grey winter months it was cozy inside and on long summer afternoons its outdoor tables basked in sunshine. It was the rare place that always felt like home. (Anna Winger)

Oh thermal bath, how I love thee!  Your warm, green, salty waters.  Your coed naked saunas.   You are my excuse to laze around all day in a bathrobe as you cure all that ails me.  Bad Saarow, in eastern Brandenburg on the shores of the Scharmuetzelsee, with your treatments for a variety of true medical conditions! Cardiovascular diseases, rheumatism, respiratory illnesses, you are all cured! And those lovely wellness spa treaments, ahhh. Days spent in the Thermalbad, with your pressurized water sprays and multiple temperatures.  The Saunalandschaft, the cheap prices! Truly you are a wonder for tired Berliners in need of serious rejuvenation – and you are most German and so democratic! Ain’t nothing like this in New York. (Amanda Herman)