He might be the most powerful designer in Paris, but it may be pushing it to suggest that Lagerfeld stage-managed the weather before his autumn/winter show at the Grand Palais.

The 53-year-old said he was "shocked" when Penelope Cruz spoke out his name for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor at the 82nd Academy Awards – despite the fact bookmakers regarded him as clear favorite to snatch the prize.
It was the 18th award for the Vienna-born actor’s performance as fictional SS colonel Hans Landa in the World War II satire.

Raabe's slightly reedy, highly modulated voice belongs to an old gramophone record. The dozen backup players are a cross between big band and salon orchestra. Photo: The goup poses in Toronto.

"It is among the world's most modern museums," Poland's Culture Minister Bogdan Zdrojewski told reporters at the opening ceremony.

Located in Warsaw's revamped 17th century Ostrogski Palace, perched on a hill near the Vistula River, the museum is designed to plunge visitors into Chopin's universe via cutting-edge audiovisual and interactive technologies.

Belarus questioned an upcoming concert in Minsk, saying letting it go on would be a "costly mistake."
Rammstein's music could "destroy the Belarusian state system," said the country's Council for Morality.

Slow-burning Turkish film 'Bal' (Honey) is the third installment of director Semih Kaplanoglu's Yusuf Trilogy.
The film tells the story of a young boy in an isolated mountain area who ventures into the forest in search of his father.

Sections of the audience jeered and hissed at the premiere of Jud Süss -- Film ohne Gewissen ("Jew Suess -- film without conscience"), which chronicles the making of its 1940 namesake Jud Süss, a film still largely banned in Germany.

German speaking DiCaprio said "the biggest gift that he's given me is an appreciation for cinema and cinema's history, and an entirely new perspective on my view of this art form."

Born in 1943 in Innsbruck, Austria amid the ravages of war, Helmut Zwerger grew up during the reconstruction period. His formal studies were medicine where he earned his doctorate. As a young dentist and Jazz musician, Zwerger became obsessed with painting in a later part of his life, sicce 1993 and has become remarkably successful.

The rap artist Bushido made it to the top of the music world as one of Germany's first gangsta rappers. Since he first came to notice in Berlin's underground rap scene around a decade ago, Bushido - whose real name is Anis Mohamed Youssef Ferchichi - has been scorned by the mainstream media and politicians alike.

Dietrich will be first to have a star laid in her honor on the "Walk" – modelled on Hollywood's own – by festival director Dieter Kosslick and Berlin mayor Klaus Wowereit on Thursday, the ART+COM company said.

The Idstedt Lion will return to its rightful place before the end of this year, Danish tourism officials announced this week. Currently the statue stands in the courtyard of Copenhagen’s arsenal.

The monument recalls the victory of the Danish army over Schleswig-Holstein troops in the Battle of Idstedt (Isted in Danish) on July 25, 1850. As a result, Flensburg continued to belong to Denmark.

Also judging the competition will be Chinese actress Yu Nan, Italian director Francesca Comencini, Somali novelist Nuruddin Farah, German actress Cornelia Froboess and Spanish producer Jose Maria Morales.

The jury is to hand out the prizes at a glittering awards ceremony on February 20.

Newly discovered and restored portions of Germany's most famous silent film, Metropolis, were available for viewing by the public for the first time on Thursday at Berlin's Film and Television Museum.

Missing footage from director Fritz Lang's 1927 science fiction classic, thought to be lost forever, was found in Buenos Aires in 2008.

The black-and-white film about strange occurrences in a village in the months leading up to World War I was directed by Austrian Michael Haneke, who was on hand to receive the award. The film was up against stiff competition, including Broken Embraces form Spain, directed by previous Oscar winner Pedro Almodóvar.

The Munch Museum has confirmed the existence of even different works that have been on offer. The experts there say they have never before seen fakes that have been so painstakingly made, and they now warn against what they see as organized distribution of the fakes.

The terracotta colored exterior strikes the eye, as do the geometric shapes and the convex, 45-feet-high column at the entrance. The roof of this entrance area is the floor of the actual exhibition space. “We have created a little plaza here,” Botta told swissinfo.ch.



The film Piggies by acclaimed director Robert Glinski comes to Polish theaters this month. It's about Polish call boys who ply their trade across the border in Germany.

Meanwhile, Katarzyna Rosloniec's Mall Girls tells the story of young shoppers who will stop at nothing to get their hands on desirable fashion items.

Although impressive in parts, the reason for the victory is lost on this reviewer. Set in a northern German village in 1913, The White Ribbon foreshadows the destruction of WWI and the rise of National Socialism; although that devastation is far from the minds of the villagers, the seeds are sown in their actions.

Future Berlinale festivals may look different as change sweeps the film industry and the red carpet gets greener.Star director Martin Scorsese and actor Leonardo DiCaprio are among those slated to light up the red carpet in Berlin this winter. They will take part in the 60th annual Berlinale Film Festival from February 11 to 21.

Films from Scandinavia don’t usually top the box office, but for the second year of Ciné Nordica, French movie lovers had an opportunity to experience something a little bit different while they munch on their popcorn. (Photo: A scene from Nord by Rune Denstad Langlo.)

Georg Kindel confirmed reports that he had given up on plans for a show at Wembley Stadium in June after his company "World Awards Media" was liquidated by its main stakeholder Superfund.

In austere and sinister black-and-white, the film explores a series of crimes in a northern German village on the eve of World War I, apparently linked to a group of children brutalized and scarred by their parents.

The tower of the Zollverein coal mining complex in Essen-Katernberg (in operation 1854-1983) is still an impressive construction:  it is here where the year-long series of cultural highlights will begin. More than 300 projects and over 2,500 events will take place in the Ruhrgebiet throughout the year 2010. Photo by Manfred Vollmann.

Burgenland tourism chief Gerhard Gucher and Austria Marketing director Petra Stolba said 435,000 people had attended more than 4,000 events including concerts and exhibitions over the last 12 months.

The eastern province had focused its tourism and marketing activities on Rohrau-born Haydn this year as it marked the 200th anniversary of the composer’s death.

The 56-year-old writer recalled how Nicolae Ceausescu's officials had threatened to kill her if she did not agree to be an informant for the secret police. The fear of death, she said, gave her "a thirst for life, a hunger for words."

The APA cited gallery owner Ernst Hilger as announcing Hrdlicka's death in the daily Die Presse. Hrdlicka's sculptures, drawings and paintings are known as much for their artistic subtlety as their controversial themes. His religious works, in particular, drew protest from believers who considered them blasphemous.

The sold-out, nearly three-hour show took in Fab Four favorites, hits from his later band Wings, solo efforts and a few new numbers and drew a warm, enthusiastic welcome from an audience spanning three generations.

"I'm so happy to be back in Hamburg where it all began 49 years ago," 67-year-old McCartney, one of the two surviving Beatles, told cheering fans in German.