This year’s Golden Bear of the the 59th Berlinale goes to the movie La Teta Asustada (The Milk of Sorrow) from Peru.

The complete list:

Golden Bear for the Best Film

La teta asustada (The Milk Of Sorrow) by Claudia Llosa

Silver Bear - The Jury Grand Prix

Alle Anderen (Everyone else) by Maren Ade and Gigante by Adrián Biniez

Silver Bear - Best Director

Asghar Farhadi for Darbareye Elly (About Elly)

Silver Bear - Best Actress

Birgit Minichmayr in Alle Anderen (Everyone else) by Maren Ade

Silver Bear - Best Actor

Sotigui Kouyate in London River by Rachid Bouchareb

Silver Bear - Outstanding Artistic Contribution

Gábor Erdély and Tamás Székely for the Sound-Design of Katalin Varga by Peter Strickland

Silver Bear - Best Script

Oren Moverman and Alessandro Camon for The Messenger by Oren Moverman

Alfred Bauer Prize (for a feature film that breadens the horizons of the art of filmmaking)

Gigante by Adrián Biniez and  Tatarak (Sweet Rush) by Andrzej Wajda

Congratulations to the winners!

The European Outdoor Film Tour 2008/2009 stopped in Münster on Saturday evening. It showed a nice selection of the best outdoor short films, ranging from bouldering over kajaking to mountainbiking.

My favourites have been the alpine documentation of the Expedition Manaslu, Seasons (MTB) and the English parody Touching the stairs.

It was well worth the visit, so I can recommend attending the event, if it comes to a town where you live.

Movie Poster

I saw the movie “Der Baader-Meinhof-Komplex” lately. It depicts the first years of the Rote Armee Fraktion (RAF) (the German Wikipedia-article on the RAF has a lot more detail). It concentrates mostly on the first generation of the RAF, the events which led to the foundation of the RAF and the culmination of the RAF histeria in the “German Autumn” (Deutscher Herbst) with the Schleyer-kidnapping and the hijacking of the Lufthansa airplane “Landshut”. The general timeline of the film is from 1967 til 1977, leading to the suicides of head figures of the first RAF-generation in Stammheim Prison.

It’s a film well worth to see, especially for us Germans who were born in the early seventies. The actors were top notch and the whole atmosphere of the film was intense, going under the skin. I was born early in 1972, so seeing a film detailing the events of the first years of my childhood was very interesting and of course a bit disturbing, because you were living under the safe blanket of childhood. The film is lacking some detail on how the different generations of RAF where recruited.

A wanted poster depicting members of the RAF

I still remember the posters of the wanted person searchs, showing bad b/w-photos of the RAF-members, which where all over the places, hanging prominently in post offices and other places. I am not sure when the last of those posters were seen. I quick search on the web brought up one from 1993.

The film still got me thinking. It hardened my belief that capitalism is evil and the world’s wealth should be redistributed among humanity. But I guess we will only see the world taking another, hopefully positive direction when the current financial system finally collapses.

While I certainly disagree with the use of violence to achieve political goals, but seeing states using it, I can quite understand the notion to take up arms against the perceived injustice in the world. Sadly, most people don’t understand that violence just leads to more violence.

Kunsten å tenke negativt

I went to the cinema yesterday evening. Precisely to the Cinema, my favourite cinema in town. It’s small, has a cozy café called “Garbo” and always shows a nice selection of independent films. And it still has the kind of cinema feeling I miss when I am going to watch a movie at one of those big cineplexes.

So, yesterday I watched the Norwegian film “Kunsten å tenke negativt” (The art of negative thinking). A minor annoyance which I have with most films in Germany: it was synced. I would have loved to watch it in the Norwegian original with German subtitles.

A short summary from the Norwegian Film Institute:

The Art of Negative Thinking is a burlesque drama about Geirr (33), who has become severely handicapped in a traffic accident.Given his isolation, weapons fixation, self medication and limitless bitterness, his girlfriend Ingvild (30) doesn’t know how to handle him any longer. She therefore invites a municipal positivity group to their home. Consequently, the stage is set for 24 intense hours at Geirr and Ingvild’s place. Geirr is the only one who refuses to see anything in a positive light. Gradually, he is joined by all the positivity group members. Geirr forces everyone through a tunnel of desperation, anguish and hopelessness, before the day dawns and they once again catch sight of light, if only as a faint glimpse of hope.

The film is really worth to see and I can recommend seeing it.

I really like Scandinavian films: their obscure humour and characters,  and especially concerning crime movies, their reality and grittiness.