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Arts & Culture

Preview: German Currents

“Die Vermessung Der Welt (Measuring the World)" is the opening night film for German Currents.
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“Die Vermessung Der Welt (Measuring the World)" is the opening night film for German Currents.

Third Annual Festival Of German Film

What better way to celebrate Oktoberfest than with German Currents: Third Annual Festival of German Film (October 5 and 6 at the Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park) and a film about beer.

It's a busy weekend for San Diegans with the San Diego Film Festival in full swing and the San Diego Comic Fest running. So here's yet one more option to choose from, the toddler-aged German Currents. Only in its third year, the festival shows some staying power and growing maturity. With all the other events, though, I did not have time to preview any of the films.

The festival opens tonight with the 2012 German film “Die Vermessung Der Welt (Measuring the World)," based on Daniel Kehlmann's best-selling novel of the same name. The film concerns two of the greatest minds of the 19th century, mathematician Carl Friederich Gauss (Florian David Fritz) and scientist Alexander von Humboldt (Albrecht Abraham Schuch), who dedicated their studies to measuring and comprehending the world they live in.

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The beer documentary, "Beerland," screens tomorrow night at 7pm. Filmmaker Matt Sweetwood is not German. He's from the American Midwest but he's lived in Germany for more than a decade. The film is his attempt to understand the culture he's been living in by exploring the country's beer.

The full schedule of films and events is here.