Happy New Year

The AIB team wishes to all parents, host families, partners, students, alumni and friends

A HAPPY NEW YEAR FULL OF JOY AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS!

BONNYWOOD – Hollywood in Bonn

Liebe Freunde der AIB und des Films,

wir laden Sie herzlich zur Filmpremiere von sechs Kurzfilmen unserer amerikanischen Filmstudenten

am Freitag, 17. Dezember 2010
um 19:30 Uhr
im WOKI Filmpalast in Bonn

ein.

Die auf Bonns größter Leinwand gezeigten Kurzfilme werden am Abend zuvor von einer internationalen Jury ausgewählt. Alle Filme wurden von amerikanischen Filmstudenten während ihres Auslandssemesters in der Bundesstadt unter professionellen Bedingungen produziert.

Die Film & Television School Europe (FITS Europe), ein Joint Venture der Akademie für Internationale Bildung (AIB) und der Loyola Marymount University Los Angeles, war zunächst im Düsseldorfer Medienhafen angesiedelt und fand 2008 am Rande der Bonner Altstadt gegenüber der Volkshochschule ein neues Zuhause. Die derzeit über hundert Teilnehmer aus verschiedenen Programmen der AIB leben während ihres viermonatigen Aufenthaltes in Bonner Gastfamilien.

Die unterschiedlichen Interessen der angehenden Regisseure spiegeln sich in der Auswahl der Themen wider: das Engagement einer Bonner Gastfamilie für mehr Nachhaltigkeit wird ebenso portraitiert wie"der lustigste DJ der Welt" aus Köln oder ein junger Winzer bei der Eisweinlese. Alle Filme haben eines gemeinsam: sie behandeln regionale Themen aus der Sicht junger US-Amerikaner.

Neben den Jungregisseuren aus Los Angeles begrüßen wir am Premierenabend folgende Ehrengäste:

• Jürgen Nimptsch, Oberbürgermeister der Bundesstadt Bonn
• Mark Evan Schwartz, Dekan der School of Film & Television,
  Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, USA
• Dr. Rainer Zäck, Geschäftsführer der Akademie für Internationale Bildung gGmbH
• Professor Andrew Hood, Head of Film Studies FITS EUROPE
• Professor Glenn Gebhard, Graduate Director
  Loyola Marymount University School of Film & Television, Los Angeles, USA
• Professor Art Nomura, Dozent FITS EUROPE /
  Loyola Marymount University School of Film & Television, Los Angeles, USA

Detaillierte Information zur Veranstaltung sowie zur Reservierung für kostenlose Tickets erhalten Sie hier.

Bonn On Ice

Ice Skating Rink at the Museumsplatz!

The skating rink at the Bonn Museumsplatz is one of the largest covered open air rinks in Europe, consisting of an area of 1100 square meters. In a beautiful atmosphere of a magical sea of lights, many winter attractions are offered.

The rink is open daily at 10am, and on holidays at 11am until January 30, 2011. New this year is an instructional curling range. It is open from Monday to Friday at 2pm, 4pm, and 6pm, sturdy shoes with grip soles are n necessary.

Skates can be rented for 4,50 Euro, entry fee is 3 Euros.

Watch some short impressions from last year, filmed by one of our former film students from Loyola Marymount Universtiy in Los Angeles on our YouTube-Channel!

A Journey of Interplanetary Funksmanship

Blessed sisters, brothers, damen und herren.  We invite you on a journey of interplanetary funksmanship.  We are a beautiful people.  So many faces with so many stories, so much food with so much drink, so much love with so much funk, hit me in 3-D baby, swing low sweet cherry top.

Prayer breaks for food to be consumed.  Eager individuals leap for the starting line, predicting the wait that will follow an apathetic walk up to the tables full of food.  We all wait our turn,  consumed in conversation, sneaking glances at passing plates, oh the delightful anticipation. 

Go time comes, fork – knife – spoon – napkin – plate, let’s do work baby.  Each of the six, maybe seven, rectangular picnic tables is filled with food, five types of salad, bowls of mashed potatoes, gravy to complement, a tray of enchiladas, bread rolls, green beans, and at the finish line there’s Dr. Rainer, hand slicing a golden brown once living animal of Turkish descent.  Dunkel oder helles? Dark for the dry mouths, light for the wet.  You choose.  I prefer my turkey dark.

As stomachs filled, the conversation previously held around rectangular and circular tables branched out beyond these confining constraints.  A group of athletes took over the engineering lab, taking advantage of the conveniently placed ping pong table, another social scene formed around a circular chest high table outside, members of this social niche brought together under one common commodity of consumption, cigarettes, and various others scattered throughout the building, lounging into leather couches, watching Toxic Avenger YouTube clips, and I believe an Alte Hause was spotted, but this will be filed a rumor for the time being. 

LMU students from each discipline were in attendance, engineering, film, the various majors that make up the New Europe Program, and of course the AIB students from Bonn University coupled with the teachers and administrators that have given their all to make this semester happen.  

If you weren’t there that night, wo warst du? Everyone who had a hand in the production of this event deserves the greatest of thanks, for a day for the thankful, I thank thee production committee.  You made my night a memorable one, and feedback from attendees reverberate such sentiment. 

100 Americans, 15 Italians and 12 Turkeys!

On the 25th of November, 100 AIB students celebrated Thanksgiving by having a nice American/German dinner. Thanksgiving is a time for bringing family and friends together and giving thanks to the good things in life. For many students this was the first Thanksgiving without family, but in a way having close to 100 Americans, 15 Italians, and festive holiday music, there was a nice family-like atmosphere.

The AIB provided the students with 12 turkeys, mashed potatoes, drinks, and also added a German seasonal tradition to the American holiday, by providing Glühwein. The students were in charge of the appetizers, sides, and desserts. This turned out to be a good idea, because it made for an interesting variety of food. Appetizers ranged from artichoke cheese bread, bruschetta, and a nice variety of salads, all the way to chips, guacamole, and mango salsa. The sides were also interesting. We had a huge assortment of vegetables, casseroles, cranberries, lasagna, as well as the german side called knödel. After all that food some people still had room for dessert, which included, cheese cake, muffins, pudding, a variety of pies, and sugar cookies. Many students pointed out that this great assortment of food provided them with more options than they would have had back home.

All in all, for myself this was a great experience. At first, I was actually jealous of my friends and family back home in America. Of course, Germany does not celebrate Thanksgiving so here it was just a normal day. All businesses were open, all schools were open, no parades were on television, it felt a little weird. I got up just like everyday and headed to work, while I'm sure most of my friends and family in America woke up and got to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. It would have been great to be home in Texas with them to celebrate the holiday the way that I usually do, but by the end of AIB dinner I felt that my Thanksgiving was in no way a disappointment. This different style of Thanksgiving dinner was an amazing experience that I will never forget.

Welcome to Germany, a home for science and culture!

Have a look at this funny video to get some impressions of the past History of Medicine Study Abroad Program. Shot by our program director Olaf Brodersen and edited by Dylan Gallagher. Thanks for this!

By the way: You can find more videos on our YouTube Channel!

Alumni of the Month – Matt Zuvela

The AIB's Alumnus of the Month feature will showcase some outstanding alumni who are doing interesting and exciting things, or who have made exceptional contributions to their chosen field of profession.

In this month’s feature Matt tells us a little bit about himself and what has kept him coming back to Germany. Matt was a participant in our New Europe Program and is now working as an Radio and Online News Reporter at Deutsche Welle here in Bonn!

Read his complete story on our website!

German-American Cookie Kitchen at its best!

Written by Jana Aßmann

Just a few days before the start of the Advent season, a small group of NEP students came together to bake some German and American cookies. Even though both recipes („Vanillekipferl“ and vanilla cookies with soy milk) contained lots of sugar, butter, and – as the names imply – vanilla, they tasted quite different and revealed some of the discrepancies between German and American cookie baking traditions.

After having bought piles of flour, sugar, butter, margarine, and powder sugar, the students and I met at the AIB and tried to cope with these masses of ingredients! But everything went well; with the help of two hand mixers and some strong hands kneading the ingredients we were able to prepare the dough for the „Vanillekipferl“, which turned out to be – at least for the American students – quite not sweet enough! I was surprised but I understood when we prepared the dough for the American vanilla cookies afterwards: Besides some flour, the dough consisted mostly of brown sugar, vanilla soy milk, and margarine, and it was so sweet you could hear the sugar crunch between your teeth! I must admit everybody loved trying this dough, me too, but the difference between the two recipes was obvious.

The dough of the „Vanillekipferl“ was rather crumbly, it was hard to form horns out of it, while the American vanilla dough was so soft it stuck to your hands all the time. But this was not the only difference: I remember standing in front of the students, two different coffee cups in my hands, and asking them: „ Which size of cup do you need for measuring the ingredients? “ After having received some perplexed gazes it turned out that 'cup' is a measuring unit which doesn't have anything to do with coffee cups!

In the end we managed preparing and forming the dough despite all these little problems. We had about a hundred cookies that we decorated afterwards with almonds, sugar icing, and powder sugar. They looked delicious in their little cellophane bags and the whole AIB smelled of vanilla cookies and Christmas.

For everybody who wasn't able to join us that afternoon or who wants to try baking these cookies, we decided to publish the recipes – even though it's a baker's secret we normally don't give to anybody :-)