Brianna Summers and other Berlin-based Australians blog about life and culture in the German capital, exclusively for the Goethe-Institut. #BiculturalUrbanite
Learning a foreign language unlocks other cultures, facilitates previously impossible relationships – and doubles your vocabulary. If you’re a word nerd like Brianna Summers, the opportunity to play around with language is bilingualism’s greatest appeal.
To the untrained eye, Mauerpark looks like an abandoned lot. Every weekend it attracts a cavalcade of tourists, locals, families and freaks. And now, thanks to the completion of a major redevelopment project, there’s twice as much room to party.
Evictions are nothing new in Berlin, yet very few capture the public’s attention. The recent demise of the Liebig34 housing project triggered protests, fuelled the ongoing debate about gentrification and raised questions about where the city’s priorities lie.
A further Berlinale jewel is the film Bloodsuckers (German title: Blutsauger) by German director Julian Radlmaier. In this new work, he continues with healthy self-irony his search for the place of the intellectual in the field of tension between capitalism and the working class.
A digital industry event in March, an audience event in June – this year's Berlinale has to tread unconventional paths due to the pandemic. It is all the more important that it is being held nonetheless.
For #kinoinoz, Brisbane-based film critic Sarah Ward takes a closer look at German films screening down under. Here you'll find everything from film reviews and interviews to festival previews.
Directed by German photographer-turned-filmmaker Jim Rakete, and screening in Australia via the environmentally focused Transitions Film Festival, this impassioned documentary follows young activists from around the world as they attempt to combat climate change.
One of Germany's few homegrown box office hits of last year, this portrait of a family’s life in exile during the 1930s brings Judith Kerr’s well-known children’s novel to the screen. Playing in Australia at the Jewish International Film Festival, this all-ages-friendly drama explores a horrific period through a young girl’s eyes.
In the filmmaking debut of actor-turned-writer/director Lisa Charlotte Friedrich, contact between people has been outlawed for humanity’s safety. Live premiered before the world’s COVID-19 shutdowns, so it’s topical by accident rather than intention.
Peter Wohlleben is changing the way people around the world think about trees and forest conservation. Germany’s best known forester spoke to Goethe-Institut ahead of the Australian premiere of his film The Hidden Life of Trees.
A personalised concert idea that started in Germany in mid-2019 has boomed since the worldwide spread of Coronavirus. Flautist Sally Walker, who has been organising the Australian set of performances, tells Goethe-Institut what it’s all about.
There are segments of the Berlin Wall located all over the world: in English gardens, in the lobby of a hotel in Texas, along with countless sections in public parks, art galleries and private properties right across Europe. Now, an original slab of the Wall is going on display in Sydney.
