Live music events in Berlin cancelled to curb coronavirus spread

Helen Hunt says Nancy Campbell, the fictional reporter she plays in the war drama “World on Fire,” is based on two different real-life journalists: William Shirer, who chronicled Hitler’s rise to power for CBS Radio, and Claire Hollingworth, the Daily Telegraph reporter whose “scoop of the century” broke the news that Germany invaded Poland — triggering World War II.

Till Lindemann, lead singer for the industrial-metal band Rammstein, has been diagnosed with coronavirus, according to the German newspaper Bild.

An X-rated performance of 'Bück Dich' was previously censored

BERLIN -- Locked down due to the coronavirus pandemic, the nightclubs in the German capital have decided to keep the beat going — at least online.

“Time to Hunt,” the Korean action thriller that had its world premiere last month as a gala screening at the Berlin Film Festival, has given up its theatrical release plans. Instead, it will be released by streaming giant Netflix in mid-April.

"It all happened so much more quickly and drastically than anyone was expecting"

Burhan Qurbani's Berlin Alexanderplatz, a modern-day adaptation of the 1930s-set literary classic, is the front runner for this year's German Film Awards, the Lolas, having picked up 11 nominations, including for best film. Berlin Alexanderplatz premiered at this year's Berlin International Film Festival.

The famous Berlin nightclub Berghain has canceled all forthcoming “self-produced” events through April 20 due to public health concerns surrounding the spread of coronavirus, according to its website.

Plans to tear down part of the hated ‘Berlin Wall’ in Piccadilly Garden have been approved by the city council’s executive.

No Coachella, no problem.

The German Film and Television Academy Berlin (DFFB), one of Germany’s most prestigious film schools, has sacked its British director, Ben Gibson, following an incident during the Berlin Film Festival in which he exposed his backside to a female student during a heated argument.

By Tom Grater

A Jewish prisoner pretends to be Iranian to escape being shot and is then forced to teach Farsi, a language he doesn’t speak, to a Nazi superior inPersian Lessons, the new film from Ukrainian-born, Canada-based director Vadim Perelman (The House of Sand and Fog).

An impoverished laborer returns home one day to find that social services have taken his children, after the family’s increasingly dire circumstances push his wife to commit a desperate act. With a corrupt local administrator blocking the way to a fair hearing to get them back, the man decides to cross the country on foot in order to plead his case to the government in Belgrade.

Mohammad Rasoulof, the Iranian director whose latest film, There Is No Evil, won the Golden Bear for best film at the Berlin International Film Festival on Saturday, has been summoned to serve a one-year prison sentence in Tehran, according to reports. Nasser Zarafshan, a lawyer for Rasoulof, told the Associated Press on Wednesday that the Iranian authorities have ordered the director to turn himself in.

By Tom Grater

A small but splendid Indian tale inspired by poems written by Lalleshwari, a 14th century woman mystic from Kashmir, as well as a Rajasthan folk story, Pushpendra Singh’s The Shepherdess and the Seven Songs(Laila aur satt geet) takes the viewer deep into the heart of northwest India, where a young nomadic bride plays with her desires and toys with the lust of a young ranger.

Overshadowed by a grisly, racially motivated shooting in western Germany and the growing pains of new festival leadership, this year’s Berlinale served to illuminate the market dynamics and global issues set to impact the international film and television industry in the run-up to Cannes — provided coronavirus stays away from the Croisette.

Arriving between Pawel Pawlikowsi's Cold War and Limonov — the award garlanded second and eagerly anticipated third segments of the boxy-monochrome trilogy begun with Oscar winner Ida — Ivan Ostrochovsky's steely drama Servants somewhat bravely adopts a very similar approach in terms of style and editing.