Henrietta Foster / 23 Nov 2023
Learning From Pristina
Kosovo Theatre Showcase 24-29 October, Part I
I worked in the former Yugoslavia as a journalist during the civil war in the 1990s.(...)
Film
Charlie Bertsch / 22 Nov 2023
Communist Sentimental
Vittorio de Sica’s Bicycle Thieves
Vittorio De Sica’s 1948 film Bicycle Thieves is hard to watch but easy to rewatch.(...)
Charlie Bertsch / 19 Oct 2023
Everything’s Exploding
Hiroshima mon amour After Oppenheimer
Hiroshima, mon amour, the 1959 collaboration between director Alain Resnais and Marguerite Duras, explores the limits of feeling with profoundly disturbing results.(...)
Charlie Bertsch / 27 Sep 2023
Love After Fascism
Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s The Marriage of Maria Braun
The Marriage of Maria Braun is a cinematic speedball, tugging the heart in opposite directions until it cannot bear the strain.(...)
Charlie Bertsch / 21 Sep 2023
The End of Privacy
Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s The Lives of Others
Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s superb 2006 film The Lives of Others looks back at the final years of East Germany.(...)
Joel Schalit / 11 Sep 2023
Reading Politics
The Battleground’s Fall Books List
Journalists don't read books. Or if they do, very sparingly. Trained to follow the 24-hour news cycle, they focus on the daily flow of events, hour by hour, minute by minute. That's the narrative we know.(...)
Charlie Bertsch / 05 Jul 2023
Reliving the Cold War
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny probably won’t make a lasting impression on people not already invested in its titular character.(...)