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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.

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]

Sometimes, silence seems louder than the shrillest noise. In New York, where noise is the norm, silence can pierce your heart and penetrate your soul, until you feel like crying.

6 years after 2 planes pierced the hearts of an entire nation, and penetrated the souls of the Western world, the silence at Ground Zero still screams. And though the pain will never go away, New York is back on its feet. [Read more]

I’m just home from Berlin Alexanderplatz and I must say that I have probably seen the most crazy thing in my life.

Namely: several thousand people trying to get into a new store at midnight. There was police and ambulances and dozens of security people who where beginning to get quite aggressive and also lots of people that got frustrated because they wanted to buy cheap stuff.

Some students made fun of the whole situation by chanting “Buying, buying!” and tasteless stuff like “We are the people!”. All in all it was a really uncomfortable situation out there.

I perfectly understand that people don’t have much money these days and that they wanna take advantage of this situation but what I just experienced made me think about the state of humanity really. This was seriously a disturbing experience. People were out there in the middle of the night getting aggressive because they wanted to buy cheap. It wasn’t like anybody’s life would have depended on this.

I uploaded a short video of the incident. Just see for yourself…

A lot can be said about Potsdam. Probably most of the stuff is true.

Located a stone’s throw west of Berlin, Potsdam drew national attention on Easter Sunday 2006, as a German-Ethiopian husband and father was sent into a coma by the blow to the head by an assumed, yet unidentified, right extremist. It was a punch on the nose for a nation, desperately fighting to move past its all too tragic past.

[Read more]

We had the privilege of meeting Reverend Billy from the Church of Stop Shopping during his short visit to Berlin and took the chance to interview him for our first issue.

Here are some pictures from his show accompanied by a quote. For the full interview subscribe to our newsletter to get informed when the first issue is released…

[Read more]

Who is the one-man-wonder from the USA who had a whole generation of fräuleins screaming at the top of their lungs? The sex symbol with the schmaltzy pop-tunes and the trademark hairdo? Quick, time is up. No! Not David Hasseloff, there is one pop star who Germans love even more: [Read more]

On August 23 the House of World Cultures (or: Haus der Kulturen der Welt) will be reopening after a year-long refurbishment. The great news for all Berlin dwellers or those who have the opportunity to get there is that they have a compelling program in stock for us:

A two-month arts and cultural program featuring New York and marking the 50th birthday of the building. The New York festival offers a perspective on the city’s current art scene as well as on cultural and historical developments since the 1960s, featuring art, music, literature, performances and film.

Log on to www.hkw.de to get more info on the program. We will definitely keep you up-to-date on this…