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For the past few years its been BERLIN, POOR BUT SEXY, but this somehow escaped the notice of Presseball organisers Andreas Dorfmann and Marina Schill who, since 2007, secured the available rights to Berlin`s number one hi-life social fest, the Presseball.
The Presseball made its first appearance on the Berlin calendar on March 9th 1872. Its 109th variation took place on Jan 12th 2008 as 1,500 guests and accompanying press corps assembled at the luxurious Maritim Hotel on the Stauffenbergstrasse for nearly 12 hours of fun, feast and some well-rehearsed tabloid frolicks.
At a time of the year when most news readers and TV viewers are bemoaning their Christmas and New Year credit crunch, unlimited food, wine, champagne, big bands and discos answered the needs of media owners able and willing to pay EU.580 per person for a Catagory 1 table, or EU.380 pp for a Catagory II table. Less able flaneurs could share the frantic pace for EU.180. As well as dancing and toasting, rubber-necking was the order of play as key figures from the press, politics and cutural life reached for their chicken wings: Friedbert Pflüger and Laurenz Meyer of the CDU were seen dancing - with their wives; as did Erhardt Körting of the SPD; Christina Rau, widow of the former Head of State, Johannes Rau, attended with her son; Mania Feilcke, President of the Ambassadors Club of Berlin and Yoram Ben-Zeev, the new amabassador of Israel in Berlin, were in attendance, as was the Minister of Brandenburg Jörg Schönbohm (CDU) and Walter Momper (SPD). Oscar-winner Ben Kingsley graced the red carpet, no doubt taking notes for whatever unlikely sequel to "Ghandi"(1982)he might have in mind. It was no surprise, as well, to witness key figures of the German press getting into the frame; from the established press these included Ulrich Deppendorf, boss of the ARD, with his colleague Friede Springer, while New Media also had a representative in the form of Stefan Pribnow, boss of on-line international news journal Weltexpress.
With news of cracks now emerging in the governing coalition just across the street and building economic uncertainties blowing in from the West, the image of a luxury liner heading for icy trouble was perhaps an all too easy one to make. But one worth making nevertheless. The air wasn`t exactly full of flying business cards. Indeed, for Dorfmann and colleague Schill, producers also of Dorfmann Film & TV, the gross-out wasnt without its underlying tensions. They took up the Presseball offering in February 2007 for EU 50,000, with Dorfmann investing 75 per cent and 30-year-old Schill taking the remainder 25 per cent. However, as another wintry sun rose over Berlin on Sunday January 13th, they could happily announce to the assembled German press that “Our hope has been fulfilled“. CODA The 2008 Presseball was co-sponsored by Israel, hence the title “Shalom-Israel“. For those with a keen interest in such matters, the main prize of the celebrated Tombola - a Renault Clio - went to the wife of Berlin`s main meat manufacturer Jürgen Wache, while the top prize of the evening was won by the wife of Oberstleutnant Günter Kruse. She will been enjoying a luxury cruise not to Tel Aviv but the Maldives. |
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