BERLINoFF OffkulturOffberlin

Oh, Beautiful: My Patriot Act is an evening-length performance using dance, text and video to present a kaleidoscope of qualities of the US today through the eyes of an expatriate. US-born Choreographer Rachel Brooker has lived in Berlin for three years, and through the benefit of distance has begun to address her native culture in her work. Dance, text, sound and video amplify, support and antagonize each other, just as Brooker’s contradictory perspectives and emotions about her homeland form, through their conflict, a fraught but coherent picture of US culture and politics at this moment in history. More…

Due to the opening of the new U.S. Embassy in Berlin and the presidential elections in November, ENGLISH THEATRE BERLIN will make American theatre the focal point throughout its first season in the new venue. Amongst others we will present two World Premieres of new plays by American playwrights living in Berlin: AMERICAN TET by Lydia Stryk plus - as a co-production with the 7 Stages Theater in Atlanta, Georgia - THE EXTREMISTS by C. J. Hopkins.

American Tet is about the effects of war on those who make it. It enters into the lives and world of a military family, the Krombachers. The father, Jim, served in Vietnam before building a career in the Army; while the son, Danny, currently serves as a military policeman in Iraq. And then there is Elaine, an exemplary military wife and mother –an upright patriot who teaches the spouses of new soldiers the ins and outs of military life.  As the play opens the family, including the rebellious daughter, Amy, await Danny who is coming home on leave. Danny’s return brings unexpected complications into the black and white world of duty and pride. Coming home, too, is Danny’s friend, Angela, who has been gravely injured in the war. Meanwhile, Elaine encounters a woman from another world, Nhu,—from Vietnam—who unsettles her and sets about the unraveling of her unquestioned assumptions and world-view. American Tet is a brutal account of the effect of the current war in Iraq and past wars, on soldiers and soldiers’ families. As the author, Lydia Stryk, writes “It’s not a pretty play. But it’s not a pretty world.” More…

Ziel des Festivals ist es den kulturellen Austausch zwischen Deutschland und dem Irak zu fördern. In der Begegnung mit anderen Kulturen gibt es viel zu entdecken. Wir wollen Unterschiede und Gemeinsamkeiten erkunden, um damit Brücken zu bauen gegen Misstrauen und Hass. More…

Seit 2006 hat es sich das PornfilmfestivalBerlin auf die Fahnen geschrieben, den cineastischen Sex aus der Schmuddelecke herauszuholen – und die vielfältigen Erscheinungsformen der filmischen Fleischeslust auf die große Leinwand zu bringen. Bereits 2006 und 2007 entstand so eine bunte Vielfalt unterschiedlichster künstlerischer Herangehensweisen an die großen Themen um Körper, Lust, Liebe und Sexualität. Auch die 2008er Auslese unseres Programms beginnt, dem Thema entsprechend, mit einem big bang: Bereits zur Eröffnung zeigt die Pulp-Fiction-Retroporno-Phantasmagorie »The Bad Luck Betties« des amerikanischen Alt.Porn-Autorenfilmers Winkytiki, was Porno so alles sein kann: sexy und clever, lustig, und immer wieder auf überraschende Weise gegen den Mainstream-Strich gebürstet. More…