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Film club b-ware! are again organizing their “Awarded Summer” (Ausgezeichneter Sommer) in Berlin, which means independent movies screened at amazing outdoor locations Bar25 and Badeschiff (at Badeschiff you can even enjoy the movie from the pool!).

See the trailer here and learn more about the movie and the screening at Bar25 after the jump.

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In the late Palezoic and Mesozoic times, a supercontinent is said to have existed, which was comprised of all the continental crust of the earth. It’s name is a composition of the Greek words for all and earth – Pangea.

Pangea Day – tomorrow – is a joined effort to turn this supercontinent into reality again. It will bring together an audience of 500 million or more people in a worldwide filmfest, which you can follow in thousands of venues around the globe, or simply on your PC screen. The festival features two dozen outstanding short films, the crème de la crème of more than 2,500 entries worldwide.

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Just when you thought the Dems were beginning to move in circles, looking to something as colorful as gas taxes to spike the “Donkey Punch,” Obama supporters turn the knobs and change the beat.

Following Will.I.Am’s wildly popular “Yes We Can,” featuring soul saint John Legend, basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and the angelic Scarlett Johansson (just to name a few), TI$A (from the superior, but much overlooked, hip-hop/r’n'b producer/writer/super group Sa-Ra Creative Partners) drops another MTV/Hollywood gem to keep the election spectacle vibrant.

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Exactly one year ago, at 9:01 am, Cho Seung-Hui paid $14.40 for a U.S. Postal Service express parcel, two hours after he had killed two students at a dormitory of the Virginia Tech University.

The package was bound to go to NBC’s headquarters; the Zip code and street address were incorrect, so it reached the network with a little delay. The parcel contained 27 quicktime-files with videos of Cho, several pictures and a collection of his writings. Cho signed with „A Ishmael“ and returned to the Blacksburg campus to murder another 30 people before shooting himself.

NBC went on to air parts of Cho Seung-Hui’s “Multimedia Manifesto” – a decision which has been widely attacked, as well as it has been defended. What guided the editors at the Rockefeller Center to impart those disturbing communications of a multiple murderer? Why are the decisions of TV producers still relevant in the age of the Internet video? And when does Cho become too much Cho? [Read more]

Call him the Black Kennedy, the Tiger Woods of politics, or the Second Coming. The epithets used to describe presidential hopeful Barack Obama (D-Ill) are a testimony to an election that is so much more than politics. There is something close to biblical about rain, when the skies give way to an almost cathartic downpour, draining off the drudge, sins and conversation-residuals clogging the streets. In any Hollywood movie (especially considering the writers’ strike) it could have been a Second Coming scenario, yet it was an unassuming Monday with weather more befitting of an unassuming British city pronounced Gloomster (but probably spelled Gleucmcester) in the midst of Berlin. The prophesized savior of American politics, Barack Obama, drew close to a 100 people, who sought shelter in the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung on this rainy, borderline-suicidal Monday evening, to learn about the self-professed harbinger of a new era – in a country so far from theirs.

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In case you didn’t notice already – it’s christmas season! Here at the tapmag headquarters, the team is eagerly awaiting the festivities. We are happily humming christmas songs all day long and the air is buzzing with anticipation of all the presents to come. [Read more]

Yes, lumping together a whole birth cohort in a single catch phrase is bound to fail. In the end, I don’t feel part of generation X, Y or Z. While I sense a trace of unity when meeting people with whom I share the birth year, I doubt that this connection transcends watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on TV at the same age.

What makes me a part of generation Y then (I am slightly too old for the instant accessers)? Other people define me as. Why do they do that? Because they want to express their alienation with people of my age through a concept that allows them to point their finger at exactly what it is that they just can’t understand about my generation. [Read more]

We’re all used to watching MTV videos with more licking, sweating, and rubbing than half of the usual soft core porn movies.

Same goes for the TV station’s shows, where participants habitually get down and dirty in hot tubs, and stage dramatic cat fights which end up in some nice girl-girl cuddling (just watch The Real World!). Therefore, it was just a matter of time until porn would start looking like music television. Well, that time has come, and it ain’t as spicy as you expected.

AfroDite Superstar had its official European premiere at the Second Pornfilmfestival Berlin yesterday. It tells the story of two girl friends, who are trying to break into the rap world. One of them, Afrodite, is discovered by talent scout CEO and put into the spotlight, while the other one, Iris (notice the inventive names!), is the real talent who writes the songs Afrodite shines with. This is a blow to their friendship and Iris falls for the female stylist, who is really the big boss, but has to stay in the background because she isn’t accepted as a woman in the rap world. Another rapper and a dialect coach who teaches the girls some street cred are also involved. So far, so soap opera.

Various members of the cast get together in occasional sex scenes - and I do mean occasional, given that this is a porn movie the ratio between sex and talking is just depressing. Also, the scenes don’t spare a certain unintended comic, which the audience realized as well. Some of the highlights that caused outright laughter were a very sexy pair of underwear from one of the actors as well as the lines “I cannot do this. Your father - he is like a father figure to me!” followed by the almost untakeably corny line “Meet me in my room- in five minutes.”

What makes one wonder is that this movie is part of the festival’s female film section, where movies are shown that take on a woman’s point of view. Is that what female porn looks like?

A story that would fit The Bold and the Beautiful, hardly any getting-it-on, and no truly explicit action? This movie represented all the clichés about women and porn - that women need an extensive storyline, that they need a friendship part and lots of dialogues. Well, that has proven wrong here. The movie is a mix of Britney Spears’ Crossroads and quite a bit of your daily soap opera, while it tries to imitate MTV with confessional- type talking to the camera by Afrodite and a show that looks like TRL. Maybe this was intended to be a striking parody on today’s music television and the quest for street credibility, but it ends up being more corny than classy.

AfroDite Superstar oscillates between fun and funny, but a little more spice wouldn’t have hurt this one.

By Jessica Binsch

You can watch the trailer here.

Starting today, Queens’ P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center , a MoMA affiliate, will present Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 15-hour epic film version of Alfred Döblin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz.

Orginally aired in 1979/80 as a 14-part series on German public television, Fassbinder’s masterpiece, running a total of 930 minutes, was recently restorated and released on DVD.

Apart from being able to see the episodes in 14 distinct screening rooms, visitors will have the opportunity to read the storyboard, see magnified stills and listen to audiotapes of Fassbinder dictating the script.

Fassbinder: Berlin Alexanderplatz was previously shown at Kunstwerke Berlin. P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center is located at 22-25 Jackson Avenue in Long Island City. Directions are availabe here.

Taryn Simon documents the hidden; her photos shed light on the secrets of society. Her “American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar” collects and lists places which fascinate because we either were not aware of their existence, or we did not dare to imagine them. This weekend, her exhibiton in Frankfurt opened its doors. [Read more]