Welcome to the Homepage of the German Consulate in Sydney
Dear visitors,
this website offers you a high range of different topics about Germany. You will find information about our consular services, the German culture and education as well as German-related news, events and links. We are also constantly striving to improve our website. Your ideas and opinions are welcome.
Your Consulate team
“The birthday cake of nearly 400 films has been baked,” announces festival director Dieter Kosslick. The 60th Berlin International Film Festival begins on 11 February. The flurry of flashbulbs, the red carpet, the film stars: the Berlinale promises ten days of great cinema in the German capital. The 60th birthday of the festival, which first saw the light of the film world in 1951, is also being celebrated by Hollywood greats like director Martin Scorsese, who is presenting his new film Shutter Island with the two actors Leonardo de Caprio and Ben Kingsley.
Berlinale
With its clear lines, brightness and transparency, the architecture of the new Museum Folkwang in Essen adds a brilliant highlight to the museum landscape of the Ruhr District at the beginning of the European Capital of Culture Ruhr 2010. In just two years British star architect David Chipperfield designed a new home for the internationally renowned art collection of one of the most important German museums, which is opening to visitors for the first time this weekend (30/31 January).
Folkwang Museum
The journalist and writer Kurt Tucholsky (1890-1935), who undoubtedly wielded one of the Weimar Republic’s most caustic pens as well as being an outstanding literary critic and an astute observer of contemporary political and social developments, would have turned 120 this year.
Kurt Tucholsky
The United Nations has designated 2010 as the International Year of Biodiversity. Reason enough for the German Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABU) as official UN partner to devote this year – the 111th anniversary of its founding – to the dramatic decline in biodiversity. Globally, 16,000 species are regarded as threatened with extinction, that’s around a quarter of all mammals, a third of all amphibians and twelve per cent of birds.
NABU
On 23 January 1710, the Elector of Saxony, August the Strong, founded the first European porcelain manufactory in Meissen under the name “Royal Polish and Electoral Saxon Porcelain Manufactory”. A couple of years before, the alchemist Friedrich Böttger had been the first person in Europe to create a fine, hard-paste porcelain that closely resembled the then highly regarded porcelain imported from China.
Meissen Porcelain
The future of energy: this is the motto of the Year of Science 2010, which begins on 22 January and is organized by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research together with the Science Initiative. The aim of the years of science, which were launched in 2000, is to stimulate greater public interest in questions surrounding science and arouse especially the young generation’s curiosity for scientific topics by collaborating with universities and research institutions.
The Year of Science 2010
Smoking chimneys and mines, coal and steel: for many decades these were the symbols of the Ruhr, Germany’s largest industrial belt. With 53 cities and around 5.3 million inhabitants, the third largest conurbation in Europe will be showing its new face as European Capital of Culture in 2010.
RUHR.2010. European Capital of Culture
This was the name chosen by a Berlin initiative which, over twenty years ago, sought to overcome the division of Germany’s capital, using “tales of courage” to unite people across borders. Fairy tale heroes, although they might feel small, are brave enough to fight for and win their freedom. This courageous initiative gave rise to the “Berlin Fairy Tale Festival”, the largest of its kind in the world, which since then has regarded itself as a forum for intercultural encounter.
“Tales of Courage”
Expo 2010: Better City, Better Life
From 1 May to 31 October 2010 the Chinese mega-metropolis Shanghai will play host to the next World Fair, where the theme will be “Better City, Better Life”. The aim of EXPO 2010 is to offer solutions to the problem of how to improve the quality and sustainability of urban living. Germany is taking part, with a pavilion named “balancity” – a composite of the words “balance” and “city”, a city in balance.
Germany-South Africa: Let's stay Friends - From 2006 to 2010 and beyond
A new special website is dedicated to showcase the support Germany gives to football projects in South Africa. Germany and South Africa have enjoyed a close partnership for many years. With this in mind, it is no surprise that Germany and South Africa, as consecutive hosts of FIFA Football World Cups, also work closely together in this area.
The site, in English and German, also offers useful information to all visitors and international football fans about the event and its host country. The FIFA Football World Cup 2010 will show the world a new, more dynamic face of Africa.
The little pirates, tigers and bumble bees are already gathered on the pavement, keenly awaiting the arrival of the carnival procession. Seconds before the float reaches them the children start crying...
Carnival in the Rhineland
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