The 9th achtung berlin - new film award opens tonight. “Achtung” (a German exclamation meaning everything from “please note” to “CAUTION!”), as the festival is affectionately called, showcases documentaries, shorts and features made in Berlin (and the Brandenburg region). Berlin as a film setting is also explored in much depth, as are themes such as Continue Reading

Along with David Fincher, Michel Gondry is arguably the most acclaimed of the music-clip-whizkids turned movie directors. This elite club also includes Anton Corbijn, Antoine Fuqua, Floria Sigismondi, Mark Romanek, Tamra Davis and Spike Jonze (part of a loose collective of kindred spirits with screenwriter-director Charlie Kaufman, a frequent collaborator with both Jonze and Gondry) Continue Reading

Music videos for the deaf - in the early 1980's the concept might have been the basis of a particularly irreverent Saturday Night Live sketch. The idea is also reminiscent of a not-so politically correct jab at the art world in John Waters' film "Pecker" in which a blind photographer is hyped as the newest Continue Reading

While co-organizing this year's One World Berlin Human Rights Film Festival, Tapehead was pondering how the always simmeringly controversial subjects of religion and sexuality really exploded, at times collided and in any case dominated the human and civil rights discourse this past fall more than in the recent past. Questions as intensely personal as what Continue Reading

Until Sunday, November 18, the 28th Interfilm Short Film Festival will screen "500 films in 58 programs at 7 cinemas". Indeed, that makes Interfilm Berlin's second largest film festival after the Berlinale.
The pairing of music and image figures prominently in a good portion of the films. Whether in the program "Easy Way Out", a showcase Continue Reading

Lucian Busse, who documented the vibrant Chinese punk rock scene as cinematographer (Beijing Bubbles) and director (The Joyside of Europe), is also involved in the visualization of alternative music in his hometown of Berlin. Check out these three videos he created for local bands Die Türen and Lucyhoneychurch.
Die Türen - Leben oder Streben

Bonus points if Continue Reading

Next installment in the series introducing Berlin film festivals through music clips.
"Music is in the nature of poetry," said Thomas Zandegiacomo Del Bel, Programm Director of the Zebra Poetry Film Festival. Thus many films screened at Zebra are examples of audiovisual music, too. The festival, which runs until Sunday, presents a wide range of short Continue Reading

The second Down Under Berlin Film Festival of Australian and New Zealand cinema opens tonight. Until Sunday, DUB (great acronym) presents a broad spectrum of contemporary filmmaking from the seventh continent. Not only are the films largely been screened for the first time ever in Germany or at least in Berlin, offering many discoveries. The Continue Reading

It's almost a platitude to say that No Wave director Amos Poe rocks with his  camera like musicians do with their axes. His filmography includes not only neo-noir featuring the likes of Deborah Harry and John Lurie, experimental films with stellar soundtracks and music docs like "Blank Generation", "Night Lunch" and "Steve Earle: Just an Continue Reading

Eva Sterk is a Berlin-based singer-songwriter group with post rock overtones. Their latest music clip for the tune "No Note" was shot in the suburbs of Eastern Berlin and directed by realeyz.tv video blogger Laura Huertas Zurriaga. Some other members of the realeyz.tv team and their families are also involved.
The clip's considerable charm lies in Continue Reading