Culinary Comedy spotlight kicks of the festival in Melbourne and Perth
The festival is already underway in Sydney and tonight Melbourne and Perth audiences will be served some Culinary Comedy for their first course. Perth festival-goers can mix Whiskey with Vodka, while...
View ArticleSoul Kitchen
Last night the Goethe Institut’s Eva Schulz and German Consul General Dr. Anne-Marie Schleich launched the Melbourne end of the festival with the good news that Iceland’s volcanic eruption has not...
View ArticleThe White Ribbon sweeps the Lolas
Last night Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon swept the German Film Awards, picking up 10 Lolas, including best film, best director, several acting awards and a very deserved win for Christian Berger's...
View ArticleCrossing the Bridge - The Sounds of Istanbul
This documentary made we want to go back to Istanbul. I've spent only the briefest few days there but what a glorious assault on the senses it was. It's a place of contrasts and collisions, where...
View ArticleMikkelsen opens The Door
I’m a fan of Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen. He steals the show in Bond film Casino Royale (2006) with his creepy turn as an asthmatic arch-villain who weeps blood instead of tears; and his morose...
View ArticleStorm
Storm is a gripping legal thriller and realist drama, set at the International Criminal Tribunal (ICT) in The Hague, where war criminals go on trial. It won multiple awards at the 2009 Berlinale and...
View ArticleThis festival is making me hungry
This morning’s screening of Kebab Connection has me thinking rather wistfully about sitting in the window seat of a certain small diner in Kreuzberg, Berlin, tucking into a pita pocket packed with...
View ArticleWhat do you think?
The festival is heading into its final weekend in Melbourne and Sydney, with a little further to go in Brisbane and the Adelaide Program yet to kick off. What are your highlights in the program? I’d...
View Article'When We Leave' takes top honours at Tribeca
When We Leave (Die Fremde) has won the Best Narrative Feature prize at the 9th Annual Tribeca Film Festival in New York and the film's star Sibel Kekilli has won best actress. Kekilli also won the Best...
View ArticleMovie Popes, Movie Lawyers
Pope Joan's Johanna Wokalek and John Goodman join Ringo Starr (in the 1975 film Lisztomania) among the more unconventional Popes to have graced the silver screen. Wokalek (along with Liv Ullmann who...
View ArticleA Passing Thought on Translation
I would always choose an original language film over a dubbed version but, like any act of translation, subtitles bring their own idiosyncrasies. There is a small moment in The White Ribbon where the...
View ArticleBerlin Shorts: Unique Visions
This session turned out to be a festival highlight for me, in particular for its three short documentaries. I love the feeling that good documentaries (and, indeed, fiction films) can bring of real...
View ArticleFaith in Film
The Melbourne end of the festival wrapped up last night with a final screening of The White Ribbon, followed by a panel discussion and lively Q and A session. The punitive, shame-driven version of...
View ArticleEurope and war crimes - a superb and timely drama from Hans-Christian Schmid
The festival may be over in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth but has one more night to go in Brisbane and its first-ever screenings in Adelaide are due to begin this Friday May 7. Festival highlights will...
View ArticleThis year has shown German cinema examining its role in post-war Europe and a...
With the final leg of the festival under way in Adelaide until Sunday night, festival director Klaus Krischok has revealed that in the other state capitals ticket sales reached an all-time high this...
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