Reading List # 128
An entirely subjective list of things happening in Berlin
June 25
Ingeborg Bachmann – Jemand, der ich einmal war
Film premiere and discussion with director Regina Schilling.
Few voices in German-language literature have been as celebrated, debated, and controversial as that of Ingeborg Bachmann. On the occasion of her 100th birthday, Regina Schilling, director of the new film Ingeborg Bachmann – Jemand, der ich einmal war, approaches this fascinating and complex figure through an original artistic lens. The film is a portrait of an uncompromising pioneer whose lifelong struggle for female self-determination and against enforced silence has lost none of its urgency.
In the film, actress Sandra Hüller approaches Ingeborg Bachmann’s life through an imagined day, lending her words a compelling presence. Through an artfully woven tapestry of improvised scenes, archival treasures, interviews, and Bachmann’s own writings, the film traces the key stages of the author’s life—from her childhood during the war in Carinthia and her rise to prominence as a star of Gruppe 47 to her final days in Rome. The journey is shaped by her complex relationships with Paul Celan, Hans Werner Henze, and Max Frisch, as well as by her relentless struggle to forge a distinctive, radical language between public acclaim and existential crisis.
The 6 pm event featuring director Regina Schilling, actress Sandra Hüller, and writer Helene Hegemann is sold out.
(DE)
9 pm | Kino International, Karl-Marx-Allee 33
June 25
OPEN AIR AM WANNSEE mit Katja Petrowskaja, Irina Bondas, Serhij Zhadan, Claudia Dathe
On this evening, Katja Petrowskaja and Serhij Zhadan will introduce writers of Ukrainian modernism on the shores of the Wannsee.
Among them are Valerian Pidmohylny, author of the first Ukrainian urban novel, and the futurist Mykhail Semenko, whose manifestos, language experiments, and visual poetry bridge Ukrainian Baroque traditions and the 1920s, laying the foundations for new modern literary forms in Ukrainian literature.
Petrowskaja and Zhadan will join translators Claudia Dathe and Irina Bondas in a conversation about the translation and mediation of authors who remain largely unknown in Germany but are regarded as classics in Ukraine.
(DE)
7.30 pm | Literarisches Colloquium Berlin, Am Sandwerder 5
June 25-27
Public Bachmann
The 50th Tage der deutschsprachigen Literatur will take place, as always, in Klagenfurt, Austria. Not everyone can make the trip to Lake Wörthersee. So from Thursday, 25 June onwards, Slavica Klimkowsky and Thomas Beckmann are hosting public screenings of all readings in Berlin at Létteretage.
The fourteen nominated authors are Gesche Heumann, Ozan Zakariya Keskinkilic, Seraina Kobler, Wolfgang Popp, Kurt Prödel, Jovana Reisinger, Caroline Rosales, Slata Roschal, Lena Schätte, Magdalena Schrefel, Fiona Sironic, Christoph Szalay, Kinga Toth, Derya Uzun.
(DE)
June 25 - 27 | silent green Kulturquartier, Gerichtstraße 35
June 26-28
MISS READ: The Berlin Art Book Fair & Festival 2026
Art book fair MISS READ moves to silent green Kulturquartier, this year with a focus on Bibliodiversity. In its eighteenth year, MISS READ continues to offer a vibrant platform for critical discourse, experimental publishing, and independent artistic practices. 235 exhibitors from 46 countries form one of the most international gatherings for independent publishing worldwide.
Coined in analogy to biodiversity, bibliodiversity describes the plurality of voices, forms, and perspectives in publishing — a counterweight to market concentration and cultural homogenisation. Publishing after the so-called paperless revolution never fully dematerialized, yet transformed the conditions of print, distribution, and social ecosystems.
The three-day public program brings together lectures, panel discussions, performances, and book launches exploring the boundaries of contemporary publishing.
(MULT)
June 26 - 28 | Lettrétage, Veteranenstr. 21