CLIPS 2005
BUSINESS WEEK, February 28. (interviews and on scene reporting)
Suddenly, Germany's Far Right Isn't So Far Out
By Jack Ewing in Frankfurt, with William Boston in Dresden.
New, media-savvy extremists are riding unemployment to win over voters
TIME EUROPE MAGAZINE. February 10, 2005. 756 words
Hollywood and Rhine,
German movies are winning international fans.
The Berlin Film Festival shows why
By William Boston, Berlin
Roland Emmerich had to brace himself. The German director of such U.S. blockbusters as Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow was leaving behind the warm breezes of Hollywood to plunge into wintry Berlin, because he heads the judging panel at this year's Berlin Film Festival, which starts this week. That a Hollywood player like Emmerich was chosen for the job hints at the profound changes that have swept the German movie industry. Though his country's art house élite despises his commercial movies, he can expect a warm welcome this year from a film community that has matured and broadened during his 20-year absence.
German film is more popular than at any time in recent memory. Homegrown movies broke records in German cinemas in 2004, taking nearly 25% of tickets sold, up from 17.5% the year before, according to spio , a trade group. And following the surprise international success in 2003 of the east German comedy Goodbye, Lenin!, German-language films have gained wider European and U.S. distribution as well. Downfall, a movie produced by Bernd Eichinger about Hitler's final days, has been nominated for the Foreign Language Film Oscar and looks set to become one of the most internationally successful German-language films ever. The Edukators, about the generation gap between the former rebels of 1968 and their children, competed in Cannes last year. Starting next week, British audiences will be able to see Head-On, a wrenching look at a Turkish woman in Germany, which won the Golden Bear in Berlin last year and is already a box office hit across the Continent. …
BUSINESS WEEK. January 10.
Springer Steps Up Its Eastward Push
By William Boston in Budapest.
The Bild publisher is finding niches in Eastern Europe -- and filling them fast
Fakt , Poland's top tabloid daily, is published by a German company. And not just any German company: Its founder, Axel Springer, was such a rabid anticommunist that he chose to erect the company's West Berlin offices near the Berlin Wall so that he could look down, literally, on East Germany's leaders.
Since the Wall's collapse, Germany's leading newspaper publisher has stepped up its eastward march, buying up magazines and papers and launching new ones, such as Fakt and Reggel , a daily that hit Budapest newsstands this fall. And Axel Springer Verlag recently inked licensing deals to put out local-language editions of Newsweek and Forbes . "Our priority for 2005 will remain Eastern Europe, and that means Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic," says Springer Chief Executive Mathias Döpfner.
