A funny thing happens in Berlin each February during the Berlin Film Festival – the capital becomes a city of cinema fans and the Berlinale buzz can be felt from the Marlene-Dietrich-Platz in the heart of the festival district all the way out to the suburbs.

Even though Germans are becoming “Kinomuffel” (too lazy to go to the cinema) and hardly see films during the rest of the year (there were just 125 million cinema admission tickets sold  last year in a country of 82 million, down from 164 million in 2002), they can’t seem to get enough during the 10 days of the festival.

Screenings that ostensibly have nothing to do with the Berlinale pop up on the fringes of the festival as well — like last night when 1,400 people crowded into the Willy Brandt Haus, the headquarters of Germany’s Social Democrats, to see a film called “Die Welle” that will be released in March.
People looking for tickets — tickets to anything — are grateful for any screening they can get into, and made their way to the Willy Brandt Haus.

Even Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, fresh from a trip to Africa and just before flying off to Kiev, decided to spend the few hours of his lone evening back in Germany watching — and lauding — the German film that offers a surprising answer to the question: would it ever be possible to create another Nazi-style dictatorship in Germany?

“All you filmmakers and creative artists are some of the best ambassadors for Germany  anywhere in the world,” Steinmeier told the cast and big crowd before the film. “You’ve helped make the world curious about German culture and Germany.”

Steinmeier said the SPD had only been expecting a crowd of 500. “That 1,400 have come is overwhelming,” he said. “I didn’t want to miss it either.”