Presseurop |

Eurovision 2012 | Baku intent on buying respectability (Eesti Päevaleht, Tallinn)

Fri, 25 May 2012 12:05:37 +0100

This year’s Eurovision Song Contest is hosted by Azerbaijan, a country that is far from being a model democracy. An Estonian journalist takes a critical look at the deferential treatment enjoyed by the regime in Baku. (Article)

Germany | Enough "politically correct" films! (Die Zeit, Hamburg)

Fri, 11 May 2012 13:05:33 +0100

Reactions to the film Barbara show that 'feel-good' films worry German film producers. The director, Dominik Graf, implores filmmakers to dare to challenge the highbrow cinema strangehold. (Article)

Bosnia-Herzegovina | "In the Land of Blood and Honey" - soothing for elites and victims (Oslobođenje , Sarajevo)

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 17:41:33 +0100

Given a triumphant welcome in Bosnia – and very criticised in Serbia – Angelina Jolie's film nonetheless maintains the victimisation promoted by a part of the Bosnian political, cultural and religious elite, regrets Croatian writer, Boris Dežulović. (Article)

Theatre | A play about Breivik is essential for our time (Politiken, Copenhagen)

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:53:13 +0100

Can the radical manifesto of the killer of Oslo and Utøya really be staged? A theatre project in Copenhagen has raised strong protests in Norway and Denmark. But hearing the words of Breivik’s Manifesto 2083 is vital for understanding our times, responds its director, Christian Lollike. (Article)

Cinema | The secret of Denmark's success (Público, Lisbon)

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:47:49 +0100

At a time when the drive for austerity has led most countries to cut back on cultural budgets, the Danish film industry remains one of the most successful in Europe thanks to a pro-active policy of grants and support for young film makers. (Article)

Cinema | "Play" - a film that upends racist clichés (Aftonbladet, Stockholm)

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:35:06 +0100

Is this a racist movie? Ruben Östlund’s latest film — a story of poor black and middle class white children which deliberate plays on the audience’s prejudices — has sparked controversy in Sweden. (Article)

Cinema | Estonia's signature melancholy (Postimees, Tallinn)

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 14:33:24 +0100

Since independence, Estonian film makers appear to be incapable of producing anything other than films where melancholy plays the leading role, remarks Postimees, which argues that a certain dolefulness has become the hallmark of culture made in Estonia. (Article)

Greece | Shattered films from a shattered country (The Guardian, London)

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 15:05:15 +0100

Are the brilliantly strange films of Yorgos Lanthimos and Athina Rachel Tsangari a product of Greece's economic turmoil? And will they continue to make films in this troubled country? (Article)

Music | The opera Belgium can't see (NRC Handelsblad, Rotterdam)

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 15:40:21 +0100

The opera, The Mute Girl of Portici, has been a symbol of Belgian unity since 1830. But to see it staged today, you have to go to Paris, because in Brussels it could arouse political controversy. (Article)

Poland | Hollywood beckons for Polish producers

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 15:19:01 +0100

“Polish miracle in Hollywood” headlines Rzeczpospolita, enthusing about the growing number of foreign film productions co-financed by Polish companies. Over the next two years, the Warsaw daily notes, “we can expect at least 10 film premieres co-produced by Polish businessmen”.

Coming projects include a project by the American director Gus van Sant and a film that will feature one of the Australian stars: Russell Crowe, Eric Bana or Geoffrey Rush. According to Rzeczpospolita, this development is a side-effect of the global economic crisis, as “many smaller studios are looking for business partners in order to survive.”

On the other hand, “Polish investors have discovered that success in Hollywood has a unique taste that can’t be compared to any premiere in Poland.” Budding film moguls questioned by the paper showed little interest in investing in domestic film productions. “I have a simple principle: I can’t lose money on films,” one of them revealed.

(News in brief)

Theatre | New talent comes from the East (Polityka, Warsaw)

Fri, 27 May 2011 18:07:22 +0100

Europe has lost six great names in the performing arts, but their succession is assured by a new generation of directors, most of whom hail from Central and Eastern Europe. (Article)

Cinéma | Ingmar Bergman switched at birth

Thu, 26 May 2011 12:48:26 +0100

Under the sober headline of "new light cast on Bergman’s origins," Dagens Nyheter reveals a piece of news that will send a shockwave through the world of Swedish culture. According to DNA analysis, "in all likelihood Ingmar Bergman was not the biological son of his mother, Karin Bergman," reports the daily, which reports that "the news adds support to a hypothesis that Bergman, who was the child of another woman, was switched at birth."

In response to the book which announced the theory about the film director who died in 2007, his niece, Veronica Ralston, ordered the DNA tests whose results have now been disclosed. The book claimed that Karin Bergman, was ill when she had a child who may not have survived. Bergman’s father allegedly switched this child with a baby that he had with another woman. "If this information is true, it will cast a new light on Bergman’s filmography," in which his mother plays a central role, points out a Dagens Nyheter columnist, who also wonders "how writer Henning Mankell will treat the disclosure in the TV series he is writing about Bergman’s life."

(News in brief)

Cannes film festival | Lars von Trier steps over the line

Fri, 20 May 2011 13:52:33 +0100

“The villain,” reads the caption of a photograph of film-maker Lars von Trier in the Danish daily Berlingske. Reacting to comments made by the enfant terrible of Danish cinema at the Cannes Film Festival that he “understands Hitler a little”, the paper writes that von Triers “is probably not a Nazi [but] this type of statement is so offensive, stupid and tasteless that it cannot just be ignored”. Yet the Danish press didn’t react to von Trier’s comments until he was excluded from the festival. Festival management has “drawn a welcome red line which signals – even for so-called geniuses – that there is a limit to the nonsense and insults one can proffer,” writes the daily Jyllands-Posten, which, in 2005 defended freedom of speech after it published some controversial caricatures of the prophet Mohammed.

(News in brief)

Culture | Scenario darkens for European cinema (El País, Madrid)

Tue, 08 Mar 2011 14:58:38 +0100

Seven Oscars and eight Palmes d'Or in 10 years: the results of the MEDIA programme that has subsidised film production in Europe are largely positive. But now the funding is on the chopping block – to the dismay of filmmakers, who have started a petition. (Article)

Cinema | Russian intrigue at the Berlinale (Süddeutsche Zeitung, Munich)

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 14:48:58 +0100

A film by a German director about the Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky was to premiere at the Berlinale. But it’s been stolen – and the director is afraid. (Article)

United Kingdom | The King's Speech - a national fairy tale (The Guardian, London)

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 11:49:32 +0100

Hotly tipped for the Oscars, the newly released film confirms that World War 2 is now creation myth number one for Britons - and the Queen their only living connection to it. (Article)

Italy | Monicelli's dramatic last scene

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 12:15:21 +0100

"Farewell to the master of Italian comedy", headlines La Stampa. Mario Monicelli, director of La Grande Guerra (The Great War – 1958) and I Soliti Ignoti (Big Deal on Madonna Street – 1959), killed himself by jumping from the 5th floor of a hospital in Rome. He was 95 and suffering from a terminal cancer. "In his final months, he embraced the protests against cuts to culture, encouraged young people to rebel for a better future, complained that the cinema of today could not talk about Italy as it is, but he couldn’t see a future for himself,” writes La Stampa. In a country where euthanasia is still taboo, his death was a final proclamation of freedom in an anarchic life. "He wanted to decide everything all by himself right to the end, as in his movies", commented critic Paolo Mereghetti to Corriere della Sera.

(News in brief)

Cinema | Claude Chabrol, France's dark looking-glass

Mon, 13 Sep 2010 13:15:48 +0100

"France has lost its mirror", announces Libération, following the news of the September 12 passing of French filmmaker and New Wave pioneer Claude Chabrol, at the age of 80. "A less than flattering mirror", continues the daily, making note of a career that stretched over more than 60 films in which this "bon vivant" delighted in creating "scathing portraits of the underside of French society", most notably "of life in the provinces and of the bourgeoisie.

(News in brief)

Comedy | Funny foreigners (The Guardian, London)

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 16:12:29 +0100

Heard the one about the German, the Italian and the Norwegian? They are all reinventing comedy in English by playing on nuances in their own languages (Article)

Cinema | Crossing cultures in Romania's border zone

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 17:38:14 +0100

"Salonta, where we take the pulse of migration,” says Evenimentul Zilei, welcoming positive feedback following the world premiere of Morgen on August 7, the 63rd Locarno film festival (Switzerland). The first feature film by Romanian director Marian Crisan, this Franco-Romanian-Hungarian co-production tells the story of the friendship that develops between a Romanian living in Salonta, near the Hungarian border, and a Kurd he saves from drowning in a river. While the Kurdish man dreams not only go to Germany to join his son, her rescuer hosts within his family and tells him he can leave "morgen" – "tomorrow" in German.

(News in brief)

Cinema | Europe sweet-talks Hollywood (Süddeutsche Zeitung, Munich)

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 15:57:57 +0100

For years, European film boards have been competing with offers of tax breaks and subsidies to lure major US film producers to their studios. France is the latest country to adopt such a strategy, but it still lacks the appropriate infrastructure. (Article)

Theatre | Eight Gypsies and a play by Lorca (El Correo, Bilbao)

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 12:33:03 +0100

Take eight illiterate gitanas to perform a play by the great Spanish poet. The point of this experiment in Seville is to take at least the barb of artistic exclusion out of social segregation: a subject of debate for the European Encounters series at the Avignon Summer Festival. (Article)

A town in Europe | Oberammergau, a passion for the Passion (Die Zeit, Hamburg)

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 14:22:42 +0100

For nearly four centuries, the inhabitants of this Bavarian village have performed a Passion Play every ten years to ward off the danger of the plague: a highly colourful event, which attracts tourists from all over the world. (Article)

Cinema | Afghanistan documentary rocks Denmark

Tue, 18 May 2010 13:13:53 +0100

The general staff of the Danish army has started an investigation of war crimes possibly committed by soldiers in Afghanistan, after Janus Metz’ documentary Armadillo was screened at Cannes as an entrant in the Critics’ Week. In the film, explains the Jyllands-Posten, Danish soldiers talk about “executing” wounded Taliban fighters during a skirmish on 25 June 2009, which would indeed constitute a war crime. The film is not slated for commercial release till 8 July, but reactions already break down by political persuasion, adds the paper: left-wing viewers see it as a portrayal of a “Danish Vietnam”, the right as a “monument to the heroic efforts of Danish soldiers”.

(News in brief)

Cannes 2010 | Rome snubs film festival

Mon, 10 May 2010 14:54:15 +0100

Corriere della Sera reports that there will be no official Italian government delegation at this year's Cannes Film Festival, which is scheduled to begin on 13 May. Minister for Culture Sandro Bondi has announced that he will not participate to protest against the showing of Draquila – a docu-fiction, by comic actress Sabina Guzzanti, critical of the Silvio Berlusconi government's management of the aftermath of the 2009 Aquila earthquake – which he has dubbed "a propaganda vehicle that is an insult to the truth and the people of Italy." Another Italian daily, La Repubblica remarks that "Bondi would do better to focus on the shortage of cultural funding in Italy, which spends seven times less than neighbouring France." Corriere reminds its readers that the minister is in a hot seat now that his name has been linked to a corruption scandal involving slush funds for government contracts, which resulted in the resignation of his colleague, former Industry Minister Claudio Scajola, last week.

(News in brief)

Cinema | A Prophet, language is power (The Guardian, London)

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:25:56 +0100

Jacques Audiard’s A Prophet has swept the board at France’s Césars, and looks set to win the Oscar for best foreign language film. One of its lessons is that in a fast-paced globalised world, the future belongs to those who can master two, or even three, languages. (Article)

European of the Week | Agata Buzek, not just daddy's girl? (Polska The Times, Warsaw)

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 13:13:24 +0100

Voted one of the year’s ten best European actors at the Berlinale, the Polish film actress is chalking up one high-profile part after another – in life as on the silver screen. Agata, daughter of European Parliament president Jerzy Buzek, is making a first name for herself. (Article)

Cinema | Bread and circuses at the Berlinale

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 15:39:50 +0100

Dieter Kosslick, director of the Berlinale for the past decade, has come out with yet another witticism in the punning slogan "Happy Bärsday" (i.e. Happy Bear’s Day, the bear being the official symbol of both the film festival and the city of Berlin). But as the 60th edition of the Berlin filmfest gets underway, the Tagesspiegel has lashed out against "German cinema’s leading lobbyist". Between "mass and class”, Kosslick clearly opts for the former, bewails the Berlin daily. The Berlinale has grown, to be sure, and its director is as “funny” as ever. But he has failed to “cosmopolitanise” the event. "In his profoundly Social Democratic efforts to come across as the people’s cinematic benefactor, Kosslick has over-compartmentalised the Berlinale.” Worse still, “By rolling out the red carpet for [untried] German filmmakers he is provincialising the International Film Festival.” Instead, opines Der Tagesspiegel, the director ought to try to attract more masterpieces to compete with Cannes and stop giving the official competition short shrift.

(News in brief)

Belgium | Turkish cinema bigger than Hollywood (De Standaard, Brussels)

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 12:09:28 +0100

While too unrefined and exotic for the Flemish, and sometimes shown without subtitles, Turkish movies often draw bigger crowds in Belgium than even American or homegrown productions, thanks to a limited but avid audience. A report from De Standaard. (Article)

Trends | Better than Avatar, live big-screen opera (Svenska Dagbladet, Stockholm)

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 16:33:25 +0100

In the wake of a successful initiative by the New York Metropolitan Opera, national opera companies are increasingly relaying live performances to cinemas across Europe. Svenska Dagbladet waxes lyrical about the new technique which will boost accessibility to high culture. (Article)

European of the Week | Eric Cantona : striker universalis (Le Monde, Paris)

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 12:34:07 +0100

Having played himself in Ken Loach's Looking for Eric, the former star of Manchester United is now preparing to take on a leading role in a major Parisian theatre production. Le Monde presents a portrait of a legendary footballer who has found a new career as a sensitive and committed artist. (Article)

Cinema | Nuremberg Trials finally on screen

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:11:20 +0100

For the first time, cinema audiences will be able to see the official American documentary of the first Nuremberg Trial. Commissioned by the US War Department and made in 1946 by the Schulberg brothers, Budd and Stuart, Nuremberg – its lesson for Today was never shown outside Germany, because the American government of the time believed that "shocking footage of the deportation of Jews, concentration camps, gas chambers and mass graves would undermine public support for the Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of Europe," explains De Volkskrant. The daughter of one of the directors, Sandra Schulberg, worked for five years on the restoration of the film which will be given a new European premier in Dutch capital The Hague, which is home to many of the world's international courts.

(News in brief)

Cinema | Prague to boost European films

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:46:19 +0100

The Czech government is launching a subsidy program for "quality European films", that should help to revive a long cinematic tradition. Under this scheme, says Lidové Noviny, local and foreign producers of films made in the Czech Republic could get back up to 20% of their investment. "This isn't a grant for big, rich producers", states the Prague-based newspaper, quoting the country's culture minister. The daily goes on to explain that films, documentaries and television series will have to undergo a "cultural test" following which, a soon to be established commission, will ascertain whether the work in question has "a certain quality relating to European culture".

(News in brief)

Comedy | Yes, we kann (Cafebabel.com, Paris)

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 17:00:23 +0100

Comic characters like Bruno, Germany's Horst Schlämmer, and France's President of Groland, are increasingly blurring the boundaries between fiction and reality. This is doubly true now that Horst Schlämmer, AKA Hape Kerkerling threatened to run in the upcoming German elections. A cafebabel.com report. (Article)

Documentary | Filming the forgotten frontier (Cafebabel.com, Paris)

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 15:47:45 +0100

Café Babel interviews Berlin-based French students Simon Brunel and Nicolas Pannetier, directors of The Inner Border, a documentary that travels along the former Iron Curtain in search of those whose lives were shaped by the now defunct and once forbidding boundary line. (Article)

Romania | For the love of Dacia

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 14:49:11 +0100

"The car, which has been a feature of Romanian daily life for decades now has a starring role in a film," announces Cotidianul in its report on My Beautiful Dacia. The European coproduction, directed by Spaniard Julio Sotto and Romanian Stefan Constantinescu, will be premiered on 28 August at the World Film Festival in Montreal (27 August to 7 September). "The 75-minute documentary is a light-hearted essay on Romania's odyssey from the communist era to the present day, which focuses on the role played by one of the country's best-loved symbols."

(News in brief)

Germany | Making a drama out of the crisis (Süddeutsche Zeitung, Munich)

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 15:42:24 +0100

If there is one sector that is going strong in Germany and Austria in these days of dearth and doldrums, it is the theatre. The crisis furnishes a wealth of material for stage portrayals of human foibles and troubles in the grip of global capitalism. (Article)

Animation film | Putting Belgium back together again

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 17:14:03 +0100

Luke and Lucy: The Texas Rangers (original Flemish title: Suske en Wiske: De Texas Rakkers, original French title: Bob et Bobette et les diables du Texas, a CGI animated adaptation of the comic book by Willy Vandersteen (the Flemish Hergé [of Tintin fame]) is hitting Belgian cinemas today, 22 July.

The French-language daily Le Soir acclaims this Walloon-Flemish coproduction in a country torn by tensions between the two language communities. For this bound-to-be blockbuster – “the most expensive spaghetti Western in the history of Flemish cinema at €9.6m” – the (Flemish) producer enticed animators from the Walloon firm of CoToon Studios, already famed in the “European West” for their contributions to Max&Co and The True Story of Puss’N Boots. “In our country, Suske en Wiske is the perfect example of a great North-South collaboration,” raves CoToon Studios’ managing director. Suske en Wiske and Bob et Bobette are billed in both Flemish and Walloon versions respectively. There is even a special version for the Dutch, who prefer their own accent, of course…

(News in brief)

The Stage | All the world's a train station (Die Zeit, Hamburg)

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 16:49:11 +0100

For 80 days, German, Turkish, Romanian, Croatian, Serb and Slovenian actors have been criss-crossing Europe on a train transmogrified into a theatre-on-wheels. The object of this project launched by the Stuttgart National Theatre is "to foster understanding between nations". Easier said than done, says a journalist from Die Zeit, who boarded the train for the stretch from Istanbul to Bucharest. (Article)

Obituary | Pina Bausch, the final curtain

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:08:28 +0100

In the 1970s, the lady who never wanted to go home at night sparked a revolution in the world of dance, and became one of modern Germany's greatest cultural representatives. In the wake of her death yesterday aged 68, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung praises her ability to produce "dance that was about all of us." The daily goes on to eulogise her talent for "mixing theatre with dance that had hitherto been silent, and orchestrating the resurgence of everyday language through untamed gesture, which made her the queen of dance on every continent." The choreographer whose motto was "I'm not interested in how people move, only in what moves them," revitalised her medium with creations that were marked by serious social criticism and humour infused with sadness.

(News in brief)

Cinema | Austrians find Bruno hard to swallow (Die Presse, Vienna)

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 17:12:35 +0100

After Borat, Sacha Baron Cohen is back as Bruno, the notoriously camp Austrian fashion journalist. The marketing campaign for his latest mockumentary is in full swing, but Austrians are less than amused by the negative national image the film conveys. (Article)

Cinema | Machiavellian environmentalism

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:39:07 +0100

In the realm of "simple stories and spectacular images" Yann Arthus-Bertrand is king. The Parisian photographer who has just released Home, his new film that saves our planet, is so "gifted, engaged and altruistic (…) that you can’t help but love him" gushes Neue Zürcher Zeitung… with its tongue in its cheek. According to the Swiss daily, YAB, as he is known, has drummed up extraordinary media hype over a work that is "eco-ecumenical, and bereft of any nuance." Man and nature pitted against one another "in a long-winded plea against the relentless exploitation of the land, the forests and seas." YAB has allowed his sponsor, luxury giant Pinault-Printemps-Redoute which had invested €10m "to buy not only a clean conscience, but also a worldwide advertising campaign. In the protection of the environment, as in advertising, it seems the end justifies the means."

(News in brief)