Among the top foreign language features shown in the United States from 1979 through 2009 which grossed $1,3 billion dollars, German productions ranked seventh behind France, Taiwan, China, Italy, Mexico, and Spain with a total of $49 million. Only five German features generated more than $5 million in the US: DOWNFALL, NOWHERE IN AFRICA, RUN LOLA RUN, LIVES OF OTHERS, and the commercially most successful one, DAS BOOT, a 1982 release, which scored $11.5 million. It may very well be that ...

I have never been a great Quentin Tarantino fan ( I hated “Pulp Fiction” and walked out of “Reservoir Dogs”) but right off the bat I will have to say that even if he doesn’t get an Oscar this year, Mr. Q. should at least get a medal – the Congressional Medal of Honour (of Poland and Israel?) – for telling it like it should have been, even if it wasn’t quite actually that way. Any person of Jewish persuasion who does not stand up and cheer at various points in this tremendous...

The 58th Berlin Film Festival closed out a rather unremarkable ten day run with Andrzej Wajda's massive indictment of Russian war crimes, "Katyn". The political significance of this film, especially in Germany, was underlined by the attendance at the final gala of German Prime Minister Angela Merkel and other top level political dignitaries. Eighty year old director Wajda said that he hopes the film will help build new bridges between Germany and Poland. Considering that Poland suffered far mo...