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The Week in Germany: Culture

March 7, 2008

Bears on Film: Cute Knut Hits the Big Screen

Premiere: Thomas Dörflein and son Luis at the "Knut und Seine Freunde" (Knut and His Friends) film premiere on March 2 in Berlin.
© dpa

A deluge of photos and video clips of Knut the polar bear cub put smiles on people's faces all over the world in 2007.

The playful furball even attracted star American photographer Annie Leibovitz and was depicted next to Leonardo DiCaprio on the cover of last year's green edition of "Vanity Fair", as well as in a full spread in the new German edition of the glossy magazine.

Now the international celebrity and environmental symbol, who was hand-reared at the Berlin Zoo by his keeper Thomas Dörflein after his mother had rejected him, is a movie star too: "Knut und Seine Freunde" (Knut and His Friends), a feature-length documentary film, premiered in Berlin on Sunday (March 2) and opened across Germany on Thursday (March 6).

It showcases Knut's early life after his Dec. 2006 birth, when he received round-the-clock care from Dörflein and other keepers at the zoo. Knutmania soon swept the country - some three million visitors watched Knut frolic in his enclosure with Dörflein in 2007, reportedly earning the Berlin Zoo some 5 million euros.

Young and old alike are expected to flock to the new Knut movie, which also tracks the lives of three polar bear cubs in the Arctic and two brown bear cubs in Belorussia.

Cute: A few scenes from the film. © Farbfilm Filmverleih/dpa

Meanwhile Nuremberg Zoo's female polar bear cub, Flocke (Snowflake), who is also being hand-reared by keepers, is still growing strong and recently relished her first bath.

And another polar bear cub, Wilbär, has suddenly appeared on the scene. Born in Dec. 2007, he is being raised by his mother at the Stuttgart Zoo, which recently made some very cute pictures of the little fellow public for the first time.

Links:

Germany's new Polar Bear Cub is Named, Opens Eyes (TWIG, Jan. 18, 2008)

Cute Knut Celebrates His First Birthday in Celebrity Style (TWIG, Dec. 7, 2007)

Knut the Polar Bear is Celebrity and Environmental Symbol (Germany.info)

Owner of Knut's Dad Shelves Lawsuit (Spiegel Online International)

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