Safety First!

Many of you might remember Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio together on the big screen, surrounded by water and ice. While “Rose” whispers last words of love in the freezing air, “Jack” sinks to the depths of the Atlantic Ocean. And despite their coldish, blueish skin we feel nothing but warmth witnessing those eternal words of love. And – without a shadow of a doubt – we know that his life ends, but their love doesn’t.

Eleven years after Titanic (1997), Kate and Leo are back, this time as a married couple in Revolutionary Road (2008), the film adaption of Richard Yates’ novel (1961) of the same name.

26 July 2017Access AmericaSebastian Reimann

Mary Kay and Johnny – America’s First TV Sitcom

By Tabea Stöhr and Anne-Sophie Daffertshofer

For the past decades, sitcoms have been omnipresent in our everyday lives. On TV, in magazines, or on the Internet – it’s hard to escape the stars and storylines of How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, or Two and a Half Men. But when did this phenomenon begin? That’s easy: On November 18, 1947, Mary Kay and Johnny, the first sitcom ever broadcast on American TV, premiered on DuMont Television Network. Mary Kay and Johnny was a domestic situation comedy following the real life of newlywed couple Mary Kay and Johnny Stearns. By the time they started the show they had been married for about one year. The plot focused on the couple building their life together in the Big Apple with Johnny working at a bank and Mary Kay living the life of a typical housewife in their Greenwich Village apartment. So what exactly made this show extraordinary?

12 July 2017Creativity CornerLisa Seidel

Winnetou Rides Again

By Drew Hayden Taylor

Drew at the Karl May Festival in Bad Segeberg

After a dozen trips or more to Deutschland, I can officially say I consider Germany to be my home away from home. Each visit reunites me with old friends, and if I’m lucky, I get the opportunity to make new ones. I’ve grown fond of the land and the people. Upon reflection, I think I have quite probably seen more of Germany and its cities than most of its citizens. I lost track after the thirtieth town. Or was it the fortieth. … Hard to say. After this many trips, it’s all a blur of schnitzel and white asparagus.
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28 June 2017Best Books & Fabulous FilmsSebastian Reimann

Watch and Write! Writing the TV Drama Series

By Kai-Arne Zimny

“To create a television show out of thin air, without anybody paying you,

requires a certain amount of delusion, and that’s taken me very far.”

Matt Weiner, creator of Mad Men

Do you regularly watch a TV series? Probably yes.

Have you ever considered writing one? Probably not.

But if you like TV series and love to write, you might want to reconsider. The recent serial television landscape is diverse and of a quality as never before. And production studios are beginning to open their gates a tiny crack to meet an ever-increasing demand for series ideas and concepts.

In her book, Writing the TV Drama Series: How to Succeed as a Professional Writer in TV, television writer and screenwriting teacher Pamela Douglas offers an approach to learning how to slide through that crack and gain insight into what’s lurking behind those gates.

21 June 2017Access AmericaSebastian Reimann

Lessons not Learned

By Markus Ziener

There is a wonderful spot west of the city of Frankfurt in Germany. It’s in an area well known for its excellent white wine, its charming hilly landscape, and its welcoming people. It’s called The Rheingau. Once you make your way up a hill from Rüdesheim, maybe comfortably using the cable car, a fantastic view over the river Rhine opens up. From there, the Niederwald landscape park, you can see for miles to the West, overlooking the tranquil Rhine valley and even have the illusion that you actually see France.

“Germania” | photo credit: Markus Ziener

When I was there not long ago my daughter asked me about the statue named Germania that is hovering over the platform where people are gathering for the view. The 34-foot figure is called Germania. In her right hand the lady holds the emperor’s recovered crown; in her other she displays the Imperial Sword. I explained that the monument’s message was not a peaceful one. Only a few years before the inauguration of the statue in 1883, Prussia had just fought another war with France, uniting the German princes for the first time into a single nation state. The Germania was nothing else but a warning to the French: Stay where you are, don’t even think about coming here. This is ours.

14 June 2017Access AmericaSebastian Reimann

Transgenerational Transmission of Holocaust Memories and Survival: An Interview with Documentary Filmmaker Ethan Bensinger (Part II)

By Sabrina Völz

Ethan Bensinger speaking to a group of students in an upper-secondary school in Lüneburg, Germany. | Photo credit: Sabrina Völz

The following is the second part of an interview with film director Ethan Bensinger in which he answers questions about the challenges of making his prize-winning Holocaust documentary, REFUGE: Stories of the Selfhelp Home, educational projects, and fighting anti-Semitism today.