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It sounds like the plot of a screenplay, but it happened to two Berlin film students in real life.  Moritz Henneberg and Julius Drost had created an animated short film for their final project at university. "Butty" tells the tale of a household robot that gets kicked out when it can't do its job properly. When the two filmmakers posted the work on YouTube, this touching tale quickly went viral. After generating a huge amount of hits, the duo decided to submit their work to festivals — but they were in for a shock: Organizers told them the film had already been submitted under a different name.  How could that have happened? US student Samuel Felinton had downloaded the film, made minimal edits, given it a new title, "T-130," and got rid of the original credits. As the alleged autho...

An emergency meeting Thursday morning of the organization that manages the Berlin International Film Festival, or Berlinale, has left the future of the festival's current head, Tricia Tuttle, open-ended, as the festival continues to reel from controversy related to the Israel-Hamas war.  The meeting had been called by State Minister for Culture Wolfram Weimer to discuss incidents at the recent Berlinale in which, among other things, artists expressed solidarity with Gaza and criticized festival and jury leadership for their approach to handling the conflict within the festival sphere.  Weimer's office issued the following statement after the meeting:  "This morning, a meeting of the supervisory board of the KBB GmbH [the Berlinale management organization] took place in the Chancellery. ...

Travel can sometimes place us in a moral dilemma. A sense of unease may arise from everyday realities — the carbon emissions caused by flying, for example, or the broader consequences of modern mass tourism. Is this simply something to accept? Should we simply stop traveling or are there better ways to do it? For Wolfgang Strasdas, the answer is clear: "I don't think we need to feel guilty at all," says the scientific director of the Center for Sustainable Tourism in Berlin, who has studied the impacts of travel for many years. In many parts of the world, tourism is a key economic sector and an important driver of prosperity. Even so, he argues that certain factors deserve careful consideration in advance, particularly the environmental footprint of a trip and the pressures associated wi...

Minister of State for Culture Wolfram Weimer intends to dismiss Tricia Tuttle, head of the Berlin International Film Festival, German daily Bild reported on Wednesday, citing sources within the organization responsible for the Berlinale's management, the "Kulturveranstaltungen des Bundes in Berlin GmbH" (KBB).   Bild reportedly obtained the confirmation from the Culture Ministry that Weimer is calling an extraordinary meeting of the KBB on Thursday, but no official announcement as to Tuttle's dismissal has been made yet. According to Bild, Weimer and Tuttle agree that she could not remain at the helm of the renowned film festival, following the political backlash generated by speeches at the awards ceremony on February 22. Bild also mentions a picture that allegedly compromises Tuttle's...

It sounds like the plot of a screenplay, but it happened to two Berlin film students in real life.  Moritz Henneberg and Julius Drost had created an animated short film for their final project at university. "Butty" tells the tale of a household robot that gets kicked out when it can't do its job properly. When the two filmmakers posted the work on YouTube, this touching tale quickly went viral. After generating a huge amount of hits, the duo decided to submit their work to festivals — but they were in for a shock: Organizers told them the film had already been submitted under a different name.  How could that have happened? US student Samuel Felinton had downloaded the film, made minimal edits, given it a new title, "T-130," and got rid of the original credits. As the alleged autho...