Berlin & Beyond Film Festival
Berlin & Beyond (German: Berlin & Beyond Filmfestspiele) is an annual film festival based in San Francisco, California featuring new cinema from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Founded in 1996, the festival is a program of San Francisco's branch of the Goethe-Institut and has become one of the largest and most significant German-speaking film festivals outside of Europe. For 15 years, over 500 films have been presented with over 110,000 attendees. Notable guests have included Doris Dörrie, Bruno Ganz, Michael Verhoeven, Florian David Fitz, Donna Woolfolk Cross and Wim Wenders. Annually, the festival welcomes over 10,000 people, and celebrates seasoned masters, up-and-coming new artists, dynamic documentaries, and momentous classic films.
Through 2009, the festival took place each January. In November 2009, it was announced that, starting in 2010, Berlin & Beyond would be moved to the fall to coincide with German Currents - a similar festival of the Goethe-Institut in Los Angeles. German Currents is a smaller festival, held at theaters in Los Angeles. The cooperation between the two festivals was prompted by the retirement of Ingrid Eggers, former festival director of Berlin & Beyond, who was instrumental in its founding. The cooperation is also intended to allow the sister branches of the Goethe-Institut in Los Angeles and San Francisco and their partners in the United States and the German-speaking countries to bring a larger and better selection of contemporary German-language films to the West Coast, and allow guest artists from Europe to make appearances at both festivals.
The festival’s current director is Sophoan Sorn, who was appointed to lead the 15th Anniversary Berlin & Beyond Film Festival, which took place in late October 2010 at the Castro Theatre, along with an “Encore Day” in San Jose. Highlights of the 15th festival included: Feo Aladag's When We Leave - German national entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 83rd Academy Awards; Animals United 3D, Germany's first RealD 3D animated feature film; and a broadened Documentary Films section.
The festival's 16th edition took place in October 2011, with Sorn remaining at the helm.
[edit] External links
- [1] Official Website
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