The Berlinale 2020 has undergone a reshuffling at the top: Carlo Chatrian is its new artistic director, working alongside the festival’s new executive director, Mariette Rissenbeek. In this interview, Chatrian talks about films as a mirror of troubled times and about the inestimable importance of the film-going public.

Three films in this year’s competition, “Berlin Alexanderplatz”, “Undine” and “Schwesterlein”, are set in Berlin. They’re about crime, love and death.

Namibian nurses learn German to work in Germany.

Post-war glamour and glory, scandalous films and a movie star on the red carpet wearing a paper bag over his head: some highlights from the tumultuous history of the world’s biggest film festiva

Some big changes are coming to Germany's biggest and biggest-name film festival this year. Here’s the lowdown on what’s new at the Berlinale 2020.
 

Until the 15th century, the Atlantic Ocean marked the perceptible border between Africa and Europe on the one hand and America on the other. Their overcoming set in motion a history of colonization, enslavement, exploitation and migration. The Goethe-Institut's conference "Echoes of the South Atlantic" puts this past in the center of an intercultural discourse.

The African continent is young and full of creativity. The Goethe-Institut supports cultural actors and networks them through projects and exchange platforms. Johannes Ebert, secretary-general of the Goethe-Institut, presents the work of the Goethe-Instituts in the cultural and creative industries in Africa in a special issue of the newspaper Politik und Kultur published together with the German Cultural Council.

The formation of a collective identity scarcely seems possible unless boundaries are defined. The construction of a "we" entails an "other", most often set up as negative image of "our" communal values and their positive connotation.

Only six of ten foreign students leave Germany universities with a degree. For many, dealing with different learning cultures  is difficult. How can they prepare themselves for studying in Germany?

The Goethe Institute in Los Angeles organized a four-day conference last week, called “Worlds of Homelessness”, bringing local and international scholars, advocates, artists, architects and current or formerly unhoused people together for conversations held in downtown Los Angeles.

I’d never thought about shame as a luxury before. I’d never thought about shame much at all. Felt it, yes, but never tried to pin it down and ask it when, why, and how it became part of my life.
 

How African artists see German colonial history became clear during the cultural week “The Burden of Memory” organised by the Goethe-Instituts of the Sub-Saharan African region, held in the Cameroon capital city of Yaoundé.

At the end of November 2019, the launch of the exhibition project "Invisible Inventories", which is supported by the Goethe-Institut, took place in Kenya. At the "Object Movement Dialogue #4" in the Nairobi National Museum, the role of local communities within the restitution debate was discussed. The Kenyan journalist Abigail Arunga was on site for "Goethe aktuell".

Is it possible to live in a Christian country like Germany and keep up Islamic traditions? And how do Muslims in Germany celebrate Ramadan?

​“Sometimes you wake up with an idea, sometimes it comes from taking a walk or a drive.” Film-maker, director and writer Florian Schott's creativity is evoked by various instances in life – from conversations and films to music and books.

Social media, smartphones, the Internet of Things – whatever happened to privacy? Or has privacy become an outdated idea? This is a conversation with Jan Philipp Albrecht, a staunch advocate of data protection.

Now more than ever, the discussion around the state of Kenyan cultural objects abroad and the gaps left by their absence has reached a tipping point. 

Modern-day development projects vs. trailer parks and teepees: where the Wall once divided Berlin in half, the city's housing culture is now torn between memory and modernity, nostalgia and progress.

The media art project “Smile to Vote” revolves around a voting booth that scans faces and automates the vote-casting process. Its originator, artist Alexander Peterhaensel, criticises the increasing encroachment of technology on privacy. 

Two theatre practitioners from Namibia and Germany in 2019 engaged on a project through the Goethe-Institut International Co-production Fund to manifest a theatre production that investigates theatre as a space in which knowledge and reflection are explored and shared. 

"Truthfulness" was the motto of this year’s "DokuBaku" Documentary Film Festival in Azerbaijan. In close cooperation with the Goethe-Zentrum Baku, 38 films from around the world were shown at three venues. The independent film festival was launched in 2017 in Azerbaijan with the aim of supporting local filmmakers and non-fiction film genres.

The historian, Dietmar Bleidick, has been using the Library of the Ruhr for nearly twenty years. Its collection focusing on the past and present of the Ruhr area is unique in Europe. That, however, is not the only reason why it is so very special.
 

Landscape architect and urban planner Regine Keller seeks solutions that meet contemporary demands in both the city and rural space. Her focus is people’s quality of life.

The African cultural infrastructure is presently at a turning point. Klaus-Dieter Lehmann, president of the Goethe-Institut, highlights the positive and mutual interest in the urgent questions of postcolonial museum work in his keynote address at the opening of the final international Museum Conversations conference in Windhoek.

Carbon offset schemes promise to compensate for the emissions caused by private individuals – as air travellers, for instance – with donations to climate projects. But are they not just a way of salving guilty consciences?  

University teaching has become increasingly specialised over the centuries. But the topics addressed in research today increasingly require an interdisciplinary approach.  Leibniz Association president Matthias Kleiner sees a renaissance of universal research. 

Roland Schimmelpfennig is considered to be one of the most prolific theatre writers in Germany. In 2019, not one, but two of his plays were performed at the Jaffa International Theatre Festival in Israel.

One of the few court hearings to address the crimes committed in Eastern Congo was actually an art project: theatre and film director Milo Rau’s “The Congo Tribunal” has had a significant impact and cost three ministers their posts.

The continent of creativity: Enter Africa, a network project by the Goethe-Institut in 15 African countries, presented the mega-game Busara for the first time in the Indie Arena Booth at gamescom 2019.

Visitors to museums and archives usually interact with exhibits locked in display cases in darkened rooms. Yet modern technology has given us ways to more directly experience art and cultural artefacts. Coding da Vinci is an open, cultural data hackathon that digitally brings museum pieces to life.  

With its three transformable stages, the “Schaubühne at Lehniner Platz” is the largest theatre in West Berlin and features productions on political and socio-political issues by renowned directors.

On 25-26 March 2019, the Goethe-Institut Namibia hosted a Symposium “Colonial Repercussions IV - Colonial Injustice – Addressing Past Wrongs”, in conjunction with the Academy of Arts/Akademie der Künste (AdK) and the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR).

The Goethe-Institut Namibia recently sent an afro-futurist writer and photographer, Masiyaleti Mbewe, for participation in the Kultursymposium 2019 that was held from 19-21 June in Weimar and under the theme of ‘Recalculating the Route’.

Politics has always played out on stages: from the popular assemblies of antiquity and to the live-feed public parliamentary debates of today, politicians have performed for their voters. Social media have both expanded and fundamentally changed this political stage.

Contracts, love letters, school essays – ink blots have ruined many a written document over the years. Happily though, in Europe the simple quill pen developed into a sophisticated writing instrument: the fountain pen.

Who are they and how do they live? The advertising and media world has discovered a new target group: Generation Z, fully digitalized since birth, is coming of age. But on screen they are (still) representing the lives of Millennials.

Artur Brauner was a legendary German producer. Nobody else shaped German post-war cinema quite like he did, and he did it above all with light entertainment. However, since 1947 Brauner also delved into the Nazi era. Now he has died.

In an interview with Goethe.de, Ben Gibson, director of the German Film and Television Academy in Berlin, explained that cooperation was immensely important to him. In February 2017 he will have been in office for a year. Reason enough to look both back and forward.

Hans Weingartner’s films focus on young people determined to make a difference, talking about and trying out ideas for a better world. The director and producer has not only shaped German-language cinema; he has also conquered silver screens around the world. 

Care, equity or empathy: What do we need to gather around? The Goethe-Institutes’ Tanzkongress in Dresden and the previous Tanz Salons connected dance with questions of encounter in new ways. Finnish choreographer Maija Hirvanen summarizes her personal impressions for "Goethe aktuell".

The fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising is a reason to celebrate, but also to continue fighting for queer rights. The exhibition Queer as German Folk will be on view at the Goethe-Institut New York until 3 August. It’s a space to experience the past and present of the queer movement.

“Politik im Freien Theater” is a free theatre festival where youngsters address political issues. What can theatre do that school cannot? “It prompts discussion and creates access,” says drama teacher Anne Paffenholz.

The women’s movement, homosexuals and people who do not wish to commit to a traditional gender order have often supported one another. In concrete politics, however, the alliance also raises problems. Historian Miriam Gebhardt’s assessment.

At the beginning of 2019, population registers in Germany were amended to include a third gender category. The option box is headed ‘divers’, which translates as ‘miscellaneous’ or ‘other’, and it was introduced for a dual purpose: to remove the burden from parents faced with deciding an intersex child’s future and to show that being different can also be normal.

Politically motivated flash mobs and performances respond to current questions of society with popular and contemporary forms of dance. Can the body give answers to oppression and violence?

There is a debate on post-colonialism being conducted in Germany more vigorously than ever before. The Goethe-Institut is tackling the topic in a series of projects, thus providing a platform for those voices from the countries of origin that are still not heard often enough.

“Namibian artists often do not have the luxury of focusing on their craft as a result of there not being enough curators available, who are qualified.” National Art Gallery of Namibia (NAGN) Curatorial Coordinator, Ndeenda Shivute.

Six books from Macmillan Education Namibia Publishers, Kuiseb Publishing House, Yambeka Children Media and Wordweaver were made available for this project and three of the ICT students who produced the best apps will be sent to present their ideas at the Conference on Culture and Computer Sciences; Virtual History and Augmented Present in late May.

An International Finding Committee announced on 22nd February 2019 in Kassel that the Indonesian artist collective ruangrupa will curate the documenta 15 in 2022.

Berlin is filled with back-to-back museums, theatres, galleries, clubs and cinemas. Amid this cultural bounty, more and more ‘off-spaces’ are developing - open art spaces devoted to art free of commercial constraints.

On the tenth anniversary of the devastating earthquake in Onna, the Goethe-Institut Rome asked the photographic artist Göran Gnaudschun to produce an exhibition on the past and present of Onna’s village community. Voci che si cercano (Voices Seeking One Another) will be on display from 6 April to 15 September 2019 at the Casa Onna Community Centre. In a conversation with The Latest at Goethe, Gnaudschun talks about his encounters with the people of Onna and how they deal with loss. 

Are machines really learning to think? In his latest book, Robert Feustel demonstrates how we have elevated digitalisation to a religion.

Hardly any other topic is presently dividing political debates in Europe like the Brexit. While its outcome is still unclear, with its Europe Actually series of events the Goethe-Institut London emphasises the importance of the European sense of community. Brexit was illuminated from new angles in a public debate called Recalculating the Route. The chief results of the discussion will be presented in Weimar at the Goethe-Institut’s international Kultursymposium from 19 to 21 June. 

For the cultural hackathon Coding da Vinci Süd, the Goethe-Institut invited 15 cultural professionals, coders and hackers from Brazil, Côte d’Ivoire, Indonesia, Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania to Munich to present ideas and innovative apps for the digitisation of cultural assets.  

Imagine climbing to the top of the Acropolis, running along the flanks of the sphinx or balancing on the gable of Cologne Cathedral. Parkour as cultural mediation is the focus of a pilot project. 

As a holiday destination, Germany attracts visitors from all over the world because of its rich cultural and natural heritage. But what does Germany have to offer besides Cologne Cathedral, the Semper Opera House and Schloss Neuschwanstein? Check here to discover sights that you may not have been aware of. 

German television shows tend to have a bad reputation for poor writing and cheap productions not suited for an international market and audience. Now series like “Deutschland ‘83” and “Babylon Berlin” are putting a new shine on that tarnished image. 

At its opening, the 23rd Berlin & Beyond Film Festival is showing the film 25 km/h starring Bjarne Mädel and Lars Eidinger. Bjarne Mädel, this year’s recipient of the Spotlight Award in Acting, tells us what’s behind his acting career. 

While many Germans love football, radical fans repeatedly cause ugly scenes. To combat this, football associations and politicians across Germany are pinning their hopes on fan projects.

This four year pilot project is the first official attempt in Germany to broaden the awareness for dance in an aging society. Artistic Director Christopher Roman in an interview.

Many artists live in precarious conditions, and few can make a living off their art. Initiatives like fair music providers and fair-trade certificates for music labels show how a more equitable value chain could be created. 

Germany is presenting itself at the 2019 Taipei International Book Exhibition under the motto “German Stories.” At the invitation of the Frankfurt Book Fair, the Goethe-Institut Taipei and the German Institute Taipei, 13 German authors are presenting their works in tandem with Taiwanese authors. Bestselling author Marc-Uwe Kling spoke with journalist and author Yu Li Lin about his dystopian satire Qualityland.

The Ethnologisches Museum Berlin houses one of the world’s oldest collections of Angolan art. It is closely linked to the collection of the Museu Nacional de Antropologia in Luanda. In December, the two museums will start a partnership with the Goethe-Institut with goals set by the partners at a workshop in Berlin. They signed a Memorandum of Understanding to signal their longer-term cooperation.

Fifty-four countries, ten thousand artists, one platform: The Music in Africa platform has been online since 2014 to offer in-depth information about the African musical landscape and facilitate collaboration.