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Your Weekend: To Klang or not to Klang

TIME TO MAKE SOME NOISE: If your social life feels like its been too quiet of late, blame the Silent Film Festival and start making noise pronto to make up for it.

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Line-up for the Down by the River Festival at Bar 25.

There have been many times where I’ve found myself on the verge of needing anger management in a cinema full of obnoxious pop-corn consumers. Shouting STFU, STFU, STFU (Shut the f**k up) would only serve to increase the volume. Thankfully, you don’t always need to hear what’s being said to follow a plot.

The Stummfilmfestival (or Silent Film Festival) enters into its final weekend and there’s been a true buzz around Mitte’s Babylon Kino since it kicked off a week ago. Amongst the screenings left are Blood and Sand (Fri July 23 @ Babylon), a rag to riches tale of sorts, where Rudolph Valentino’s character grows up to be one of the best toreadors the ring knows. But of course there are complications in affairs of the heart and these are unleashed in the form of eccentricities in the bull arena. On the same evening, a special screening of The General will have an accompanied live music soundtrack performed by Neil Brand (Fri July 23 @ Kino Arsenal) who returns on Saturday with accompaniment to Greed (Sat July 24 @ Kino Arsenal). Sounds like intense pieces of drama ohne the Klang.

But if it is Klang, Klang, Klang you’re looking for, look no further than Yamoto, The Drummers of Japan (Sat July 24 @ Komische Oper Berlin). It might be one of the few times you feel it worthwhile going to Berlin’s Komische Oper, considering they have a German-Opera-heavy programme, you don’t need to understand German to go to see percussionists from Japan – they’ll awe you with their superior combination of music and drama performance.

Of course, for a lot of us this weekend it’s a no-brainer to go to Down by the River Festival (Sat July 24 @ Bar 25). As usual they’ll probably have their strict door policy out in full force – so if you’re not prepared to smell a little and sport a speck of dirt on your face maybe you can consider swimming across from the other bank. You might not have to pay that hefty €10 entry fee either!

And for the more classical enthusiasts amongst us there’s a Bach to Bach Bach Marathon (Sat 24 @ Radialsystem V) if you can handle it. Don’t think it’s for me this weekend but I quite fancy the idea of attempting to look classy and getting sloshed to Alban Gerhardt’s rendition of the six Suites.

I’ve really been turned off the flea markets of late – it is painful effort to look at junk I don’t need. A beer-festival in the name of Bierhof Fest (Sun 25 @ Berghain) sounds a million times more in Ordnung for Sunday. Tschüss life, tschüss to party.