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The Berlin School: Films from the Berliner Schule opening night reception at MoMA's Terrace 5 Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Rajendra Roy, the Celeste Bartos Chief Curator of Film at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and independent film critic Anke Leweke have organised The Berlin School: Films from the Berliner Schule at MoMA, running from November 20 through December 06, 2013. Some of the filmmakers participating in this impressive program are Angela Schanelec with Orly and Mein langsames Leben (Passing Summer), Ulrich Köhler with Bungalow and Schlafkrankheit (Sleeping Sickness). Actor Nina Hoss will present with Christian Petzold, Barbara and Jerichow and with Thomas Arslan, Gold.

Arslan will also present two of his earlier films Geschwister (Brothers And Sisters) and Im Schatten (In The Shadows).

Also appearing in post-screening discussions are Benjamin Heisenberg with his cinematographer Reinhold Vorschneider for Der Räuber (The Robber) and Christoph Hochhäusler, director of Falscher Bekenner (I Am Guilty...

In one of those serendipitous quirks of scheduling that festival-going sometimes throws up, I saw what are currently my favourite male and females performances among 2010's new films in consecutive screenings on the final Saturday of the Viennale.

Attentive readers of this site will already be familiar with my enthusiasm for Mišel Matičević and his work in Thomas Arslan's In the Shadows(Im Schatten)—itself one of the year's most outstanding world-premieres—which I wrote about in my dispatches from the Berlinale back in February.

Over eight months later I had my second viewing of the picture, an absorbingly low-key, stripped down neo-noir that showcases the strengths of what's become known as the "Berlin School," built four-square around the very precise, very physical, largely wordless turn from Matičević ("stone-faced," according to Variety's enthusiastic belated review, published in the wake of the picture's early October screening at the Vancouver Film Festival.

Above: Yasujiro Shimazu's 1937 film, The Lights of Asakusa.

Arriving for the last few days of this year’s Berlinale, at first I thought my being late to the party was why I didn’t find any new films that blew me away (as opposed to last year’s stellar yield of Everyone Else, By Comparison, Beeswax, and The Milk of Sorrow). But reports of the first week, such as those of fellow Auteurs correspondents, led me to believe that I hadn’t missed that much, what with World on a Wire, a restored 1973 Fassbinder TV miniseries, drumming up the most critical excitement.

Germany’s present-day cinema made a strong showing, with Angela Shanalec’s Orly and Thomas Arslan’s Im Schatten (In the Shadows) drawing raves on this site and elsewhere. I was able to catch up with the Arslan and if anything, it’s an incredibly pleasurable film to watch,...

Above: Yasujiro Shimazu's 1937 film, The Lights of Asakusa.

Arriving for the last few days of this year’s Berlinale, at first I thought my being late to the party was why I didn’t find any new films that blew me away (as opposed to last year’s stellar yield of Everyone Else, By Comparison, Beeswax, and The Milk of Sorrow). But reports of the first week, such as those of fellow Auteurs correspondents, led me to believe that I hadn’t missed that much, what with World on a Wire, a restored 1973 Fassbinder TV miniseries, drumming up the most critical excitement.

Germany’s present-day cinema made a strong showing, with Angela Shanalec’s Orly and Thomas Arslan’s Im Schatten (In the Shadows) drawing raves on this site and elsewhere. I was able to catch up with the Arslan and if anything, it’s an incredibly pleasurable film to watch,...

Too much or too little mental freedom - uncertainty. Too many or too few choices. Criticism of self and others can be harsh and inaccurate. A sharp tongue. A sense of mental loss rather than gain. The general is concentrating on his plan of retreat.

—Five of Swords (Reversed)

Berlin, 9:37am Thursday

Films attempted (feature length) so far: 21.

Notably worthwhile: 4 (The Wolf's Mouth, Red Hill, Congo In Four Acts, In the Shadows).

Walkouts: 3 (The Counting of the Damages, Crossing the Mountain, 108).

Yesterday was a total nachtmahr of a day film-wise, as for various reasons too tedious to relate I only ended up with two features on my schedule —Crossing the Mountain and 108 and I walked out of both at the 20-minute mark. The latter was a particularly unfortunate Berlinale experience, as it involved an uncomfortable crush of bodies outside the sold-out screening in the subterranean multiplex Cinestar (never an...