Back to Press Release List > 09/21/2007 - Film Offerings at Berlin in Lights Festival, November 2007

As part of its first major international festival Berlin in Lights, Carnegie Hall will partner with The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center to offer diverse film presentations examining the vibrant city that is Berlin. In addition, a special panel discussion in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, presented by Carnegie Hall in partnership with The American Academy in Berlin, will feature two Academy Award-winning directors offering perspectives on the city that has fascinated directors from Fritz Lang to Billy Wilder and beyond.

Berlin: Symphony of a City at Carnegie Hall: November 3, 2007

In two screenings on Saturday, November 3 at 5:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. in Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall in partnership with MoMA will present the 1927 silent film Berlin: Symphony of a City, depicting a day in the life of Weimar-era Berlin. A prominent example of the “city symphony” film genre, Berlin: Symphony of a City is shot in a semi-documentary style, favoring visual montage over a structured plot. These screenings are accompanied by a live performance of Edmund Meisel’s original score arranged for two pianos and percussion, with conductor Helmut Imig leading pianists Eric Huebner and Stephen Gosling, and percussionists Eric Poland and Pablo Rieppi.

Kino! Berlin at The Museum of Modern Art: November 3–14, 2007

Kino!, MoMA’s 28th annual survey of contemporary German cinema organized by Laurence Kardish, Senior Curator, Department of Film, will include a special series of films focusing on Berlin entitled Kino! Berlin, from November 3 through November 14. Films in the series are:

•   Dem deutschen Volke (Christo and Jeanne-Claude: The Wrapped Reichstag),
    1996. Written and directed by Wolfram Hissen and Jörg Daniel Hissen, this documentary
    details Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s 1995 dream project in which they “wrapped” the Berlin
    Reichstag.
•   Ernst Lubitsch in Berlin—Von der Schoenhauser Allee nach Hollywood (Ernst
    Lubitsch in Berlin—From Schoenhauser Allee to Hollywood), 2006. Written and
    directed by Robert Fischer, this documentary tells the story of how a son of a Jewish
    tailor from Berlin became one of Germany’s most important filmmakers prior to his
    departure for Hollywood in 1922.
•   Valerie, 2006. Directed by Birgit Moeller, this debut feature concerns a young fashion
    model living in one of Berlin’s luxury hotels who suddenly finds herself in an unsettling
    situation. An assured, riveting, and even positive film about a sudden and dramatic turn
    for the worse, Valerie sees beyond the glamour of international catwalks and into the terror
    of being a private person in a public arena.
•   Good Bye, Lenin!, 2003. Directed by Wolfgang Becker. A comedy that could only
    happen in Berlin, this film about Communism’s good old bad times was an enormously
    popular success both at home and abroad.
•   Lola rennt (Run Lola Run), 1998. Written and directed by Tom Tykwer. A whirlwind
    race against time, a breathless caper, a lively comic confection, and, at the time, a fresh
    breath out of Germany that re-elevated Berlin to its former status as a great location to
    make movies, Run Lola Run, is street chase after street chase after…
•   Hanna Hannah, 2006. (8 min.) Written and directed by Hanna Schygulla. Schygulla,
    born into the Third Reich during World War II, muses on why her mother gave her a
    Jewish name, and visits Peter Eisenman’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in
    Berlin. Followed by:
    Im Lichtbild der Großstadt (Berlin—Pictures of a City), 1998. Written, directed,
    photographed, and edited by Manfred Wilhelms. Originally a painter and photographer,
    Wilhelms is a celebrated documentary filmmaker in Germany, but virtually unknown in
    America. Here, he documents Berlin’s fourth architectural renaissance—buildings of the
    late 19th century to those built by the Nazis and rebuilt after World War II, through ones
    built during Reunification—all without narration or dialogue.
•   Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others), 2005. Written and directed by Florian
    Henckel von Donnersmarck. Winner of the 2007 Academy Award for Best Foreign
    Language Film, this brilliant thriller with a tightly-knit plot recognizes the unpredictable
    nature of human behavior in its depiction of the ruthless Stasi secret police of East Berlin.
•   Nach der Musik (A Father’s Music), 2006. Written and directed by Igor Heitzmann.
    A true Berlin story: Otmar Suitner, a celebrated conductor, led orchestras in both East
    (the State Opera) and West (Bayreuth) Germany and maintained a domestic life as
    divided as his professional one. He had two families: one in East Berlin and one in West
    Berlin, and today at age 85 still travels between wives in the company of his son, the
    filmmaker Mr. Heitzmann.
•   Nachtgestalten (Night Shapes), 1998. Written and directed by Andreas Dresen. Dresen,
    who is well-known to MoMA’s audiences for The Policewoman (2000), Grill Point (2001),
    Willenbrock (2005), and Summer in Berlin (2006), made this key Berlin film—a dry
    comedy—that takes place one night in June 1996 when, six years after the Berlin Wall
    fell, Pope John Paul II visited the city.

Please see below for a complete schedule of Kino! Berlin film screenings.

Berlin Alexanderplatz at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center: Through January 2008

In 1979/80, Rainer Werner Fassbinder created the monumental film Berlin Alexanderplatz, based on Alfred Döblin’s 1929 novel of the same name. Produced for television, the film consists of 13 episodes and an epilogue, running a total of 15 hours and 39 minutes. For this exhibition, the episodes and epilogue will be screened in a continuous loop in 14 separate rooms. These simultaneous screenings will highlight Fassbinder’s impressive visual idiom and his artistically challenging and innovative use of images. The work will also be shown in its entirety on a large screen in the gallery, allowing visitors to view Berlin Alexanderplatz in part or as a whole. The admission ticket entitles repeat visits over the course of the exhibition. The exhibition, organized by Klaus Biesenbach, Chief Curator, Department of Media, will open on October 21, 2007.

Panel Discussion at Carnegie Hall: November 3, 2007

Carnegie Hall, in partnership with The American Academy in Berlin, will host a panel discussion in Weill Recital Hall entitled Screening Berlin: Filmmakers’ Views of the City, on Saturday, November 3 at 2:00 p.m. Stars of today’s film industry—including Academy Award-winning filmmakers Volker Schlöndorff (The Tin Drum) and Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (The Lives of Others), with Sony Pictures Classics Co-President Michael Barker—will present their perspectives on Berlin and some of the most famous directors associated with the city, including Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder, and more. David Denby, film critic for The New Yorker, moderates the panel discussion.