Culture

It was still early in the morning when a rain of fire fell on the forts and trenches of Verdun. With 300 trainloads of ammunition, the Germans had been firing their artillery for hours on end. The thundering of cannons could be heard 150 kilometers (93 miles) away.The chief of the German General Staff, Erich von Falkenhayn, had given the order to attack the French. He wanted to end the trench warfare that had been raging along the Western Front between Belgium and France since September 1914, a few months after World War I broke out. His idea was to break through the front and return to mobile warfare, explains historian Olaf Jessen, author of "Verdun 1916: Urschlacht des Jahrhunderts" (or "Verdun 1916: Primordial Battle of the Century"). 'No one gets through here': that was the order F...

The Berlin International Film Festival is no stranger to political controversies, but the first one to hit this year's event happened hours before the Berlinale officially kicked off on February 12 with its opening film, "No Good Men," during a press conference introducing the international jury in the morning. The conference brought together festival director Tricia Tuttle and the seven people who will be selecting the winners of the Golden and Silver Bears: Jury president Wim Wenders, director of acclaimed films including "Wings of Desire" and the Oscar-nominated "Perfect Days," and his fellow jurors — Nepalese director Min Bahadur; South Korean actor Bae Doona; Indian director, producer and archivist Shivendra Singh Dungarpur; US director, screenwriter and producer Reinaldo Marcus Gree...

A last breakfast in her small house in Mazan, southern France. That November morning in 2020, Gisele Pelicot would have had no idea that her life as she had known it was about to end. She had an appointment — a summons to a local police station. Two months earlier, her husband, Dominique Pelicot, had been arrested. He'd been caught filming under women's skirts in a supermarket. A one-off incident, he'd sworn. He'd promised to attend therapy. His wife intended to support him. When a police officer led Gisele Pelicot into a separate room, she had no idea she would not see her husband again outside a courtroom. An officer showed her images of a woman being sexually assaulted. At first, she did not realize the woman in the photos was herself. Investigators discovered over 20,000 images of ...

A last breakfast in her small house in Mazan, southern France. That November morning in 2020, Gisele Pelicot would have had no idea that her life as she had known it was about to end. She had an appointment — a summons to a local police station. Two months earlier, her husband, Dominique Pelicot, had been arrested. He'd been caught filming under women's skirts in a supermarket. A one-off incident, he'd sworn. He'd promised to attend therapy. His wife intended to support him. When a police officer led Gisele Pelicot into a separate room, she had no idea she would not see her husband again outside a courtroom. An officer showed her images of a woman being sexually assaulted. At first, she did not realize the woman in the photos was herself. Investigators discovered over 20,000 images of ...

The first day of the Chinese New Year falls on February 17 this year. Also known as the Spring Festival or Lunar New Year, the festival marking the advent of spring is widely celebrated in China and several East Asian countries. Families traditionally gather during this time to share sumptuous meals, while children are often given money in red packets known as "hong bao." The start of the Lunar New Year also marks the rotation of the Chinese zodiac, which runs over a 12-year cycle, each represented by an animal. There are several stories explaining the zodiac. One legend goes that the Jade Emperor — an important Chinese deity — invited all the animals to a "great race," with the first 12 winning his favor. The 12 who made it in order of appearance are the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon...

The Berlin International Film Festival is awarding the 2026 Honorary Golden Bear to Academy Award–winning actress Michelle Yeoh, in recognition of her outstanding achievements in film and cinema. The award will be presented at the opening ceremony at the Berlinale Palast on February 12, 2026. Considered one of the most versatile and influential actors of her generation, Yeoh's career spans four decades and multiple continents.  "She's Malaysian, but the beginning of her career was in Hong Kong — popular cinema of the 80s and 90s. Since the 2000s, she's been making such an interesting range of work, from comedies and big blockbusters such as 'Wicked' to smaller, more personal dramas as well," Berlinale director Tricia Tuttle told DW.Michelle Yeoh played Madame Morrible in both parts of t...

The Berlin International Film Festival, or Berlinale, which runs this year from February 12-22, opens with an Afghan drama titled "No Good Men." Award-winning director Shahrbanoo Sadat's third feature is set on the eve of the 2021 Taliban offensive and tells the story of a TV newsroom camerawoman who is discouraged by the lack of interesting potential romantic partners in her country's deeply patriarchal society.  Combining political urgency and romantic comedy, the film embodies two of the Berlinale's distinctive facets: It is historically the most political of the three major European film fests, alongside Cannes and Venice, yet it's also a crowd-pleaser — one of the world's largest audience film festivals. Last year's Berlinale set an all-time ticket sales record, with 336,000 ticket...

When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, it sealed the fate of East Germany. People wasted no time and started hacking away at the monstrosity with hammers and chisels. Those people chipping away at the former border barricade were known as "Mauerspechte," or wall woodpeckers. By June 1990, most of the Berlin Wall had been taken care of by bulldozers. Only a few sections of it have survived to this day; at the official Berlin Wall Memorial or the East Side Gallery, for example. Still, fragments of the Wall keep turning up in large amounts all over the city. The Checkpoint Charlie Museum, souvenir stores and even hotels have thousands of pieces for sale. Almost 40 years since the fall of the wall, supply of the concrete chunks — brightly painted, made into fridge magnets or stuck onto postcards ...

Is Netflix really making us less intelligent? I don't mean in the old school, "TV rots your brain" sense; that hours spent binging episodes of "Bridgerton" or "Squid Game" could be better spent dusting up on your Dostoevsky. I mean: is Netflix dumbing down the dialogue and storytelling in its films and TV shows to suit an audience it knows is barely paying attention? 'Stranger Things' and the rise of exposition-dump drama It's a thought that came to me watching the final season of "Stranger Things." The Duffer Brothers' Netflix series began back in 2016 as a nostalgic tribute to all things 80s, particularly Stephen King novels and Steven Spielberg movies — "Firestarter" meets "E.T." by way of Dungeons and Dragons. But a victim of its own world-conquering success, over nine years and five...

Is Netflix really making us less intelligent? I don't mean in the old school, "TV rots your brain" sense; that hours spent binging episodes of "Bridgerton" or "Squid Game" could be better spent dusting up on your Dostoevsky. I mean: is Netflix dumbing down the dialogue and storytelling in its films and TV shows to suit an audience it knows is barely paying attention? 'Stranger Things' and the rise of exposition-dump drama It's a thought that came to me watching the final season of "Stranger Things." The Duffer Brothers' Netflix series began back in 2016 as a nostalgic tribute to all things 80s, particularly Stephen King novels and Steven Spielberg movies — "Firestarter" meets "E.T." by way of Dungeons and Dragons. But a victim of its own world-conquering success, over nine years and five...