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New York is in the middle of a culture fest celebrating Berlin, a 17-day marathon of music, film, architecture, literature and photography that began on November 2nd. Berlin In Lights is largely the brainchild of Sir Clive Gillinson, a former managing director of the London Symphony Orchestra who became executive and artistic director of Carnegie Hall in July 2005. Determined to make the New York concert hall more international, he is initiating a series of cultural festivals celebrating cities, nations or artistic movements. Berlin is the first of these. A visit by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, under its principal conductor Sir Simon Rattle had been planned for some time. Much taken by the extraordinary transformation of Berlin since reunification the city thrives through culture and politics; there is hardly any business or finance Sir Clive decided to expand that visit into a full-blown festival. He got an enthusiastic response from other New York institutions. Berlin and New York have sizeable mutual admiration societies but, until recently, post-war Berlin could only dream of being in the same league of creative effervescence as New York. Now, in partnership with the American Academy in Berlin, Carnegie Hall has put together a crowd of seminars on literature, the visual arts, film-making inviting stars such as Volker Schl ndorff and Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, both Oscar-winning German directors. The Goethe-Institut and the German consulate-general are showing photographs, the Museum of Modern Art is screening films about Berlin and the P.S.1 Contemporary Art Centre is screening the 13 episodes and epilogue of Rainer Werner Fassbinders television epic Berlin Alexanderplatz in 14 separate rooms. | 
