KLICK HIER!

Location: North American Premiere at the Vancouver Alpen Club. 4875 Victoria Drive, Vancouver.

Time: Sunday, April 28, 2013. 6 pm.

Admission fee: free.

Free parking available on the streets beside the building.
Sponsored by: British Columbia Council of Teachers of German
Generalkonsulat der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Vancouver
Goethe-Institut Toronto
Vancouver Alpen Club

Klick: https://www.umfrageonline.com/s/ac33233

At the end of World War II, after their parents, both loyal Nazis and SS officers, have been interred by the Allies, a group of German children starts a journey through the devastated country. Their goal is to find their grandmother living in the north. The 14-year old Lore (Saskia Rosendahl), which is the eldest of the siblings, leads the group on this eye-opening journey which confronts the children with the consequences of their parents’ actions and reality.

“A lyrical, deeply affecting study into a rarely seen legacy of the Holocaust.” – Megan Lehmann, The Hollywood Reporter

“Intense and emotional. Saskia Rosendahl is mesmerizing.” – Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

“Shortland’s brilliant new film is an unsettling coming-of-age story that renders its judgement on Germany’s crimes and strange aftermath of the war.” – George Robinson, The Jewish Week

April 05 6:30pm
April 06 8:45pm
April 07 7:30pm
April 09 8:45pm
April 24 6:30pm

On the occasion of the Holocaust Remembrance Day,  the movies “Hitler’s Children” and “Return to Reichenbach” will be shown.

“Hitler’s Children” (Israel, 2011, 59 mins, directed by Chanoch Zevi) tells about the descendants of the most powerful persons in the Nazi regime. What does it mean to them to live with a name that will always be associated with one of the most horrible crimes in history?

“Quiet, simple and soaked in sorrow.” Jeannette Catsoulis, New York Times

“Hitler’s Children was a film that had almost everything. It informed, it surprised, it made me think. Is killing just one or two people more acceptable than killing seven or eight? Where are the boundaries of love and forgiveness? Are there any, even?” John Crace, The Guardian

April 07 6:15pm

The documentary “Return to Reichenbach” (Canada, 2012, 56 mins, directed by Maureen Kelleher) tells about the stories of Mania, as a child orphaned by Hitler’s regime, and Johanna, a Nazi guard that protected her. Many years after the end of World War II, both women meet again in Toronto.

April 07 4:30pm

At the Reel 2 Real International Film Festival for Youth, which will be held from April 12th – April 19th in Vancouver, the new animation feature “Moon Man” (Ireland, France, Germany) by Stephan Schesch will be shown.

Children love him! Moon Man is for them not just a fertile imagination, he’s real.

Sitting on the moon in his lonely silver sphere, Moon Man doesn’t know how much they miss him. Suddenly, in one special night, a shooting star appears in space, right towards the moon. At this moment, Moon Man notices his chance to escape from the lonely moon. He hitches a ride to earth on the shooting star. When the President hears about the unexpected incoming visitation, he is totally upset.
Now, after he has just conquered nearly everything on earth and defeated everyone who stands in his way of becoming powerful, this space attack would destroy everything of his evil plan of world domination. Being attacked by aliens from another planet wasn’t part of his evil plan. That’s why his alarm bells are ringing! The only solution the President has is to escape.

Meanwhile Moon Man goes on a long journey, marveling at the many wonders the world has to offer and realizing how much children love and need him.

Based on the bestselling book by Tomi Ungerer. The film’s well-chosen moon tunes include Louis Armstrong’s Moon River.

Opening Night Friday April 12, 6:30 PM

Sunday April 14, 11:00 AM

and Wednesday April 17, 10:00 AM

Wunderkinder – directed by Marcus O.Rosenmüller

Another German film that will be shown at the Reel to Real International Film Festival in April, is the stirring drama “Wunderkinder” (Germany) by Marcus O. Rosenmüller.

1941 – when the „German Luftwaffe“ is bombing the Russian Army, suddenly everything changes. In Ukraine, three exceptionally gifted children, united by their love of music, must protect each other in order to survive. Two of them are Jewish. This creates some problems for their friendship. Nevertheless, they swear each other to be best friends for their whole life, whatever will happen. Due to the situation they are exposed to, they become unintentionally enemies. But their three fates weld them together.

One German officer wants them to prove their talents – they have to play for their lives! If they play a concert without making any mistake, he will make sure that they stay alive for the sake of culture. To manage the situation, their friendship gives them courage and their music is their power. A stirring story which shows that music can bring people closer together and about the meaning of friendship.

The film won at the Jerusalem International Film Festival, and with winning three awards it was the most successful film at the Giffoni Film Festival in Italy.

Saturday April 13, 6:30 PM

Wednesday April 17, 12:00 PM

The young physician named Barbara who lives in what is still East Germany has the dream to move to West Germany to live with her lover. Therefore, she gets transferred for disciplinary reasons from East Berlin to a provincial hospital. She is experiencing being under permanent observation of the Stasi and being punished for every moment where the Stasi does not know where she is or what she is doing.

At the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale) in February 2012, the movie won the ‘Silver Bear for Best Director’.

“Barbara is a film about the old Germany from one of the best directors working in the new: Christian Petzold. For more than a decade Mr. Petzold has been making his mark on the international cinema scene with smart, tense films that resemble psychological thrillers, but are distinguished by their strange story turns, moral thorns, visual beauty and filmmaking intelligence.” Manohla Dargis, New York Times

Get your ticket here:

“Barbara” at Vancity Theatre

The people of Europe are a vital part of Canadian history. In the past and the present, they formed and are still forming the country’s multicultural mosaic. But even though every ethnic group played their own important role in the formation of this unique society, there is one community that had, in addition to the English and French, an outstanding impact in Canada’s past: The Germans.

Whenever Europeans set foot on the North American continent, the German element was almost always represented. In Canadian history, however, it was essential. Whether with Cornwallis at Halifax, Simcoe at York or Helmcken in British Columbia, Germans were much more than merely popular as immigrants in Canada. They can be marked as a charter group within the Canadian history.

Our project “The Germans in Canada” is an ambitious 47-minute documentary that will shed new light on a part of Canadian history that everybody presumes to know, but obviously does not. There are a lot more accomplishments of German origin than most Canadians would expect – a story that needs to be told.

Today, our producer Mass Abedi is heading to the East Coast. On his one-week trip, he will visit some of the historic hotspots of German immigration to Canada: Toronto, Kitchener and Ottawa. He will visit museums, take footage of historically and culturally interesting places, meet experts on German-Canadian history, touch base with the German communities and interview German-Canadians about their experience.

If you would like to meet him, or maybe even tell the story of your or your ancestor’s immigration to Canada, feel free to contact him via e-mail:

germansincanada@abcofilm.com

If you would like to stay updated about new developments on our adventures during discovering the history and individual stories of German immigration to Canada, like us on Facebook

Facebook: Germans in Canada

and follow us on Twitter!

Twitter: Germans in Canada!

This Monday, Otfried Preußler, the famous author of children stories, passed away at the age of 89. Preußler is known for stories such as Krabat, The Robber Hotzenplotzand The Little Witch. He was born in the city of Reichenberg (Liberec) in former Czechoslovakia. Preußler wrote his first story in the age of 12 and was planning to pursue writing as a career in Prague. However Preußler youth, like millions of others, was to be marked by the last great war of the twentieth century. After finishing high school in Reichenberg he was conscripted into the army at 19. Fortunately Preußler survived the war but he spent the next five years as a war prisoner in Soviet Russia. In 1949 he was released from confinement and moved to Rosenheim in Bavarian province of Germany where his relatives had settled after expulsion from Czechoslovakia. There he reunited with his fiancée and life companion Annelies Kind, the couple have three daughters from their marriage.

The traumatic experiences of fighting and battles, captivity in prison camps and expulsion from the town of his ancestors could not kill the creative spirit of Otfried’s inner child. His first important book, The Little Water-Sprite, published in 1956, won the Deutscher Kinderpreis for Preußler and brought him recognition in literary circles. In the following years he authored The Little Witch (1957), The Robber Hotzenplotz (1962) and Krabat (1971) which are considered among the most important works he has left behind. Preußler’s works had a great influence on the children literature and have often inspired theatrical productions. Moreover some of Preußler works including The Robber Hotzenplotz and Krabat were turned into movies in 2006 and 2008 bringing his legacy to silver screen. Overall Preußler authored more than 30 books that were translated in 50 languages in various countries around the world. In addition Preußler has also authored an account of his experience in Soviet prisoner camps between 1944 and 1949 that was promised to be published after his death. Otfried Preußler is undoubtedly one of the most important authors of children’s literature and his tales will continue to enchant the imagination of kids for many years to come.

Sadafi

In our studio, we invited as our guests Monika Sievers-Redekop, LL. M., and Tini Wider, a production manager who recently immigrated to Vancouver, Canada.

As an immigration lawyer, Monika assists mainly people from German-speaking countries, who would like to immigrate to Canada. She tells us that there are different ways to immigrate to Canada: you can immigrate through the Labour Market Opinion (LMO), Here, Canadian employers hire foreign workers to help address skill and labour shortages. This would give the immigrant only a temporary residency, so that they could stay only for a year. Persons, who would like to live and work permanently in Canada, would have to apply for the permanent residency. They can apply for the permanent residency either through the Skilled Worker Program, or they must have a job offer from a Canadian employer prior to their immigration.

Monika says further, that she is not only giving legal advice. She also tries to avoid people who immigrate getting disappointed after immigration to Canada. Sometimes people are expecting another type of life over here than they would eventually find. People who think about immigrating to Canada should also consider that they might have a much higher income and a different state of life in Germany than here in Canada. Immigrants almost always have to start for their work life completely from scratch, and cannot build on their work experience from Germany. Before immigrating to Canada, people have to ask themselves whether they are really the right person for a life over here.

Tini Wider, who recently immigrated from Austria to Canada, tells us about her experience. She did everything alone, without a lawyer, and it took years until she got the permanent residency. But – finally – she is here, and now tells us about her job search in the film industry: for her the most important things seem to be networking, meeting people, experience.

Would you like to immigrate to Canada? You can find more information about how to immigrate here: Citizenship and Immigration Canada

In our latest AhornTV episode we talked to Greenhouse Gas Accountant Svend Andersen about CO2 emissions and how the global warming and climate change works. This graph shows how the level of CO2 in our atmosphere increased during the last 50 years measured at the Mauna Loa observatory on Hawaii.

We are at a critical stage right now as the level of CO2 is at 394.28 ppm (parts per million) right now and a level of about 420 ppm is seen as the point of no return.

To find out more about the development on CO2 emissions and to understand what “parts per million” exactly means visit the page of the NOAA Research

You can also visit the site of GHG Accounting if you want to decrease your CO2 emissions and as well use their CO2 widget to display the current CO2 level in our atmosphere on your website.

Finally, don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel so that you don’t miss this new episode when it comes online!